George Psarabakis, 41, driver of the No. 30 bus blown apart in Tavistock Place
In a statement on Friday, Psarabakis said he was still in great shock and "many terrible things" were coming back to him about what he saw after the explosion.
However, he pledged that he and other London bus drivers would not be cowed by the terrorists: "I am just relieved to be here and to be able to see my wife and children. Many other people have not been so fortunate. I feel for the people who have perished and for their families."
In a statement released by his bus company, Stagecoach, he added: "Myself and the other drivers in London have an important job and we are going to continue to do that as best we can."
"We are going to continue our normal lives. We are not going to be intimidated," he said.
Bernie Scranney, 33, of Shepherd's Bush, west London; at Edgware Road blast
"I got on a Circle line tube at Notting Hill and was heading towards the Guardian newspaper, where I work in the advertising department. The train was full and I stood immediately behind the driver's cab in the first carriage. We set off and another tube began to pass in the opposite direction.
"Almost immediately there was a huge bang and flash. I knew it was a bomb. Our train came to a halt and there were clouds of black smoke. A second later and the explosion would have punched a hole in our carriage. The emergency lighting came on and we heard screaming from under the other train. We could hear a guy shouting `Help me, help me.' Some people tried to get out but the doors wouldn't open.
"We didn't know if our driver was OK and I started banging on the cab door. At first there was no answer. Eventually he opened it. He was quite dazed, perhaps concussed. His windows had shattered but not blown in.
"He opened the outer door and looked at the track ahead. There were huge pieces of metal which had been ripped out of their rivets lying about. The driver warned it would not be safe to get out if the track was live. The guy under the train was still screaming.
"The driver must have taken the brunt of the blast but he got it together very quickly and made an announcement that there had been an accident. No one was hurt on our train and after a while he walked down the track and met transport officials who had come down from Edgware station.
"We were down there for about 20 minutes. Eventually they led us out along the rails. The guy under the train had stopped screaming. I think he'd died.
"There were passengers coming out of the other trains with cuts and lacerations to their faces. I had smoke black all over my face and hands. I went out and had a cup of tea in a cafe. My hands were shaking."
Paul Dadge, 28, a former firefighter who helped victims from the Edgware Road explosion
"As we passed Edgware Road injured people were starting to come out of the station. They were told to go to Marks & Spencer. We went in there and they set up a casualty area but police found a suspect package so we were evacuated.
"Everybody rushed across the road to the Metropole hotel where lots of medical teams came in."
He was pictured in many papers escorting a young woman, whose face was swathed in a burns mask, across the road.
"All I know is her name is Davinia and she had a boyfriend.
"She was one of many brought into Marks & Spencer. Then we got evacuated and it was at that point I was running across the road and the picture was taken. I filled out the triage card for her, checking that she was not allergic to anything. It was just a case of `Are you OK? We'll get help to you as soon as we can.'
"I needed to help the people who were there, the first medical teams weren't really quick enough and we didn't know there was an incident at King's Cross or Russell Square. I had some medical training from my time as a fireman. I used some anti-burn gel and helped put that on her face and helped with the burns mask.
"I hope she's OK. I'm sure she's fine, she is a very beautiful young lady. Her hair was burned and she had very bad burns to her face. She was probably one of the most seriously injured who wasn't fatal. She wasn't British, but she was very brave."
The woman had been near the front of the train, possibly in the carriage where the bomb was placed. Another woman who spoke to her gleaned that Davinia had been on her way to Canary Wharf and could only remember a fireball coming towards her and then felt as if she had hit a wall. She was later transferred to nearby St Mary's hospital for treatment.
Mark Margolis, 29, from Finsbury Park, north London; at King's Cross blast
Margolis was in the first carriage of the Piccadilly line train.
"I heard a bang and everything went black. There was screaming and glass flying everywhere. I felt blood on my face but thought we had crashed or derailed.
"I do not know how long it took to get out but it was terrifying. We had to break a window to get some air in but there was no way of getting out because the tunnel on either side was so narrow.
"The driver led us out of his carriage door and on to the rails. We were all terrified the current might still be on so we were warned not to touch anything. Because it was so dark and I felt light-headed from the smoke I had to hold on to a man in front. I know his name was Neil. I just want to thank him."
Margolis suffered cuts to his face. He was led up stairs to waiting ambulance crews.
"They checked me over and rang my wife Sarah to say I was OK. The first time I realized it was a bomb was when I heard people describing how they had walked past body parts. Thankfully I didn't see any of that but it's still just awful."
Bruce Lait, 32, a professional dancer from Ipswich, Suffolk; at Aldgate East
Lait was sitting beside his dance partner, Crystal Main, 23. They were in the carriage blown apart between Liverpool Street and Aldgate East tube stations. He suffered a burst eardrum and facial lacerations.
"I cannot believe I got away with just this [his injuries]. I was just coming down to London to rehearse for a show. I took the blast.
"I was reading a paper and all of a sudden `boom.' I was knocked out for a bit. I thought `Am I dead?' then I thought `My brain is still thinking so I cannot be dead.'"
Cynthia Bobb-Semple, 43, from Walthamstow, east London; at Edgware Road
The bomb detonated in an adjoining carriage and she suffered serious cuts after being showered with broken glass.
"I could feel something sticking out of my neck. Blood was trickling down. People were screaming, saying `Help me!' and `There's someone hurt here -- get me out of here!' It was panic. It was awful. No one knew what had happened.
"I cannot put it into words. I thought that was it, you know. I was waiting for the next bang or for something else to happen. I just thought, `I'm not going to get out.' Everyone was just helping everyone else. No one initially thought about themselves.
"My heart goes out to the families that have lost their loved ones because it could have so easily been me. I do not understand why -- we were all innocent, going about our business. I do not know how it is going to help anyone."
AFGHAN CHILD: A court battle is ongoing over if the toddler can stay with Joshua Mast and his wife, who wanted ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ for her Major Joshua Mast, a US Marine whose adoption of an Afghan war orphan has spurred a years-long legal battle, is to remain on active duty after a three-member panel of Marines on Tuesday found that while he acted in a way unbecoming of an officer to bring home the baby girl, it did not warrant his separation from the military. Lawyers for the Marine Corps argued that Mast abused his position, disregarded orders of his superiors, mishandled classified information and improperly used a government computer in his fight over the child who was found orphaned on the battlefield in rural Afghanistan
NEW STORM: investigators dubbed the attacks on US telecoms ‘Salt Typhoon,’ after authorities earlier this year disrupted China’s ‘Flax Typhoon’ hacking group Chinese hackers accessed the networks of US broadband providers and obtained information from systems that the federal government uses for court-authorized wiretapping, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Saturday. The networks of Verizon Communications, AT&T and Lumen Technologies, along with other telecoms, were breached by the recently discovered intrusion, the newspaper said, citing people familiar with the matter. The hackers might have held access for months to network infrastructure used by the companies to cooperate with court-authorized US requests for communications data, the report said. The hackers had also accessed other tranches of Internet traffic, it said. The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs
EYEING THE US ELECTION: Analysts say that Pyongyang would likely leverage its enlarged nuclear arsenal for concessions after a new US administration is inaugurated North Korean leader Kim Jong-un warned again that he could use nuclear weapons in potential conflicts with South Korea and the US, as he accused them of provoking North Korea and raising animosities on the Korean Peninsula, state media reported yesterday. Kim has issued threats to use nuclear weapons pre-emptively numerous times, but his latest warning came as experts said that North Korea could ramp up hostilities ahead of next month’s US presidential election. In a Monday speech at a university named after him, the Kim Jong-un National Defense University, he said that North Korea “will without hesitation use all its attack
STOPOVERS: As organized crime groups in Asia and the Americas move drugs via places such as Tonga, methamphetamine use has reached levels called ‘epidemic’ A surge of drugs is engulfing the South Pacific as cartels and triads use far-flung island nations to channel narcotics across the globe, top police and UN officials told reporters. Pacific island nations such as Fiji and Tonga sit at the crossroads of largely unpatrolled ocean trafficking routes used to shift cocaine from Latin America, and methamphetamine and opioids from Asia. This illicit cargo is increasingly spilling over into local hands, feeding drug addiction in communities where serious crime had been rare. “We’re a victim of our geographical location. An ideal transit point for vessels crossing the Pacific,” Tonga Police Commissioner Shane McLennan