Four explosions in London Underground, bus two weeks after deadly blasts

LONDON — Explosions struck the London Underground and a bus at midday Thursday in a chilling but far less bloody replay of the suicide bombings that killed 56 people two weeks ago.

Only one person was reported injured in the nearly simultaneous lunch-hour blasts, which shocked and disrupted the capital and were hauntingly similar to the July 7 bombings by four attackers.

Police Commissioner Ian Blair would not say if any arrests had been made Thursday but he added that forensic evidence collected from the crime scenes could provide a "significant break" in the latest attacks.

"Clearly, the intention must have been to kill," Blair told a news conference. "You don't do this with any other intention."

He also said it was not clear if the two sets of attacks were connected.

Panicked and screaming commuters fled the three affected Underground stations, sometimes leaving behind their shoes. Firefighters and police with bomb-sniffing dogs sealed off nearby city blocks and evacuated rows of restaurants, pubs and offices.

Prime Minister Tony Blair appealed for calm.

"We can't minimize incidents such as this," he said at a joint news conference with the Australian prime minister at No. 10 Downing St. "They're done to scare people, to frighten them and make them worried."

He held an emergency Cabinet meeting afterward but said no decisions "of a policy nature" were made.

President Bush was briefed on the explosions. U.S. mass transit systems remain on code orange, or high alert, since the London bombings two weeks ago, but the rest of the country is at yellow, signifying an elevated risk.

Ian Blair called the blasts "a very serious incident."

"We know that we have four explosions or attempts of explosions, and it is still pretty unclear as to what has happened," he said outside Scotland Yard.

"At the moment the casualty numbers appear to be very low ... the bombs appear to be smaller" than those detonated July 7, he said. He added later that not all the bombs went off.

An armed police unit entered University College hospital shortly after an injured person was carried in, Britain's Press Association reported.

Sky News TV reported that police were searching for a man with a blue shirt with wires protruding. Officers asked employees to look for a black or Asian male about 6-foot-2.