Meetinghouse/Humanitarian Assistance

From Olympic jubilation to bafflement and horror

Guardian Unlimited/London/England/UK/8-Jul-05

The Bloors had taken shelter at Friends House, the Quaker headquarters on Euston Road that provided hundreds of people yesterday with food, drink, telephones on which to call their families, and constant access to radio news. The broadcasts kept explaining that London was in chaos. And yet, even yards from the blast sites, it was a quiet kind of chaos.

London bombs

Times Online/London/England/UK/8-Jul-05

...Ministers and priests went on to the streets to work alongside the emergency services, helping to comfort traumatised commuters. At Friends House, opposite Euston Station, Quakers set up an emergency unit for the hundreds of people blocked in the middle of the explosions at Kings Cross, Woburn Place and Russell Square.

The Quakers offered free tea, coffee and telephone calls to all the people affected by the blasts as well as emotional support. Many of the hundreds of people stuck in Euston were witness to the explosions, with one young woman describing how she saw the bus explode and thought it was another 9/11.

She has become partially deaf and is resting in the Quaker First Aid room.

The hundreds of people who are in Friends House remain stuck there for the foreseeable future and many are unsure how they will return home tonight.