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From the Guardian:

Eyewitness

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‘There was mass panic’

People caught up in a series of incidents around London this afternoon offer their eyewitness acounts of events

Thursday July 21, 2005

Victoria Line passenger Ivan McCracken:
“I was in a middle carriage and the train was not far short of Warren Street station when suddenly the door between my carriage and the next one burst open and dozens of people started rushing through. Some were falling, there was mass panic.
“It was difficult to get the story from any of them what had happened but when I got to ground level there was an Italian young man comforting an Italian girl who told me he had seen what had happened.

From the Times:

London on major alert over feared copycat attacks
By Philippe Naughton, Times Online

Exactly two weeks after four suicide bombers wreaked havoc in the London rush hour, parts of the capital were brought to a standstill today by a spate of apparent copycat attacks on three Tube trains and a London bus.

Emergency services were called out to incidents at three stations, including a reported nailbomb attack at Warren Street station where one person was said to have been injured.

A British Transport Police spokeswoman said Warren Street, Shepherd’s Bush and Oval stations had all been evacuated. An explosion was also reported on a No 26 bus at Hackney in East London, blowing out the windows but not causing any injuries.

Large parts of London were cordoned off after the bombs, including University College Hospital, near Warren Street, where armed police reportedly chased a man - thought to be the bomber - into the building.

Soon afterwards, an internal memo was circulated among hospital staff asking them to be on the alert for a black or Asian man, 6ft 2ins in height, wearing a blue top with a hole in the back with wires protruding from it.

A press spokesman for the hospital confirmed that armed officers were inside. The incident is continuing.

Tony Blair cancelled his afternoon appointments on news of the incidents, although Scotland Yard said it was not immediately treating the incidents as of the same magnitude as the bombings on July 7.

Appearing outside New Scotland Yard, Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, said the incidents were “clearly very serious” involving “four explosions - four attempts at explosions”.

He added: “At the moment the casualty numbers appear to be very low in the explosions, the bombs appear to be smaller than on the last occasions, but we don’t know the implications of this yet and we’ll have to examine the scene very closely.”

The incidents came two weeks to the day after four suicide bombers blew themselves up on three Tube trains and a London bus, killing 52 travellers and four bombers in a co-ordinated attack blamed on the al-Qaeda network.

Sir Ian appealed to Londoners to stay off the transport system, but to go about their normal business. Three Tube lines were halted immediately after the reports, but it was later announced that the Victoria line had reopened either side of Warren St station.

“It looks like it may be people messing around, copycat-type stuff,” Dr Shane Brighton, a terrorism expert at the Royal United Services Institute, told Reuters. “The absence of any clear evidence of substantial blasts means that this is on the face of it at the moment not a follow-up attack of the same proportion.”

Dr Brighton added: “It may be an attempt by people to cause panic, maybe people with similar ideas or ideological sympathy with the people that did the recent bombings…The nature of the incidents doesn’t appear to be anything like as serious.”

Like July 7, three Tube stations and a bus appeared to be involved, and as on July 7 the targets appeared to describe a rough cross-shape on the map of London, with Warren St in the north, Oval in the south, Hackney in the east and Shepherd’s Bush in the west.

“Some were falling, there was mass panic. It was difficult to get the story from any of them what had happened but when I got to ground level there was an Italian young man comforting an Italian girl who told me he had seen what had happened.

“He said that a man was carrying a rucksack and the rucksack suddenly exploded. It was a minor explosion but enough to blow open the rucksack. The man then made an exclamation as if something had gone wrong. At that point everyone rushed from the carriage.”

Mr McCracken said he smelled smoke but did not see any injured passengers.

Other reports suggested that gunshots were fired as a man ran away from the scene at Warren Street.

Services on the Victoria, Northern and Hammersmith and City lines were suspended following the incidents. London fire brigade said there were reports of smoke coming from Oval station, which crews were investigating.

“I can confirm that emergency services are responding to reports of three incidents on the London Underground,” a Scotland Yard spokeswoman said. “They are Oval, Warren Street and Shepherd’s Bush.”

A London Ambulance spokesman said: “We are currently responding with other emergency services to incidents at Warren Street, Shepherd’s Bush and Oval. We were called to Oval at 12.38pm and sent three ambulance vehicles.

“We were called to Warren Street at 12.45pm and sent five vehicles. We will shortly confirm details of the incident at Shepherd’s Bush.”