LONDON, Sep 22: Victims of last year's deadly London suicide bomb attacks were let down by poor emergency planning, a government report will say today according to media reports.
The Home Office report will admit that anti-terrorism plans failed to deal with the aftermath of the bomb attacks by four British Islamists on London's transport network on July 7 which left 52 commuters dead and more than 700 wounded.
It will add that victims and families did not get the support they required, a lack of emergency facilities contributed to survivors' distress and police could not cope with the number of calls from worried relatives.
However, the professionalism and bravery of the emergency workers on the day is praised, the media reports said.
''We accept that there was more we could have done in our preparations and in our response on the day and in the days and weeks that followed,'' the Times newspaper quoted the report, titled Lessons Learned, as saying.
It comes after Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell admitted earlier this week that mistakes had been made after the bombings, the first suicide attacks in western Europe.
''I think the anger that people feel is justified,'' she told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper.
''People feel that after they have been an innocent victim of one of these atrocities they feel outraged by what has happened and I think that sometimes, for some people, insensitivity unintended insensitivity has made that worse.'' In the confusion following the bomb attacks, three on underground trains and one on a bus, many of the injured had to make their own way home without receiving any medical treatment.
Concerned relatives also had to trawl hospitals with photos looking for missing family members.
Many survivors argue that only a full public inquiry, which the government has refused to hold arguing it would distract the security services, would fully address all the issues.
''Though the members of the emergency services and police and the ambulance dispatchers and the hospital workers, and many other ordinary people were heroic, angelic, it was still a mess, especially afterwards -- and we still need an independent inquiry,'' survivor Rachel North wrote on her Internet blog.
Ministers had been confident that plans were in place to deal with any major attack, and the emergency services had carried out a number of high-profile drills to prepare for such an eventuality.
The report will now call for a network of suitable emergency centres to be set up across the country, such as schools and churches, to deal with future incidents, the Times reported.
Reuters
The Home Office report will admit that anti-terrorism plans failed to deal with the aftermath of the bomb attacks by four British Islamists on London's transport network on July 7 which left 52 commuters dead and more than 700 wounded.
It will add that victims and families did not get the support they required, a lack of emergency facilities contributed to survivors' distress and police could not cope with the number of calls from worried relatives.
However, the professionalism and bravery of the emergency workers on the day is praised, the media reports said.
''We accept that there was more we could have done in our preparations and in our response on the day and in the days and weeks that followed,'' the Times newspaper quoted the report, titled Lessons Learned, as saying.
It comes after Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell admitted earlier this week that mistakes had been made after the bombings, the first suicide attacks in western Europe.
''I think the anger that people feel is justified,'' she told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper.
''People feel that after they have been an innocent victim of one of these atrocities they feel outraged by what has happened and I think that sometimes, for some people, insensitivity unintended insensitivity has made that worse.'' In the confusion following the bomb attacks, three on underground trains and one on a bus, many of the injured had to make their own way home without receiving any medical treatment.
Concerned relatives also had to trawl hospitals with photos looking for missing family members.
Many survivors argue that only a full public inquiry, which the government has refused to hold arguing it would distract the security services, would fully address all the issues.
''Though the members of the emergency services and police and the ambulance dispatchers and the hospital workers, and many other ordinary people were heroic, angelic, it was still a mess, especially afterwards -- and we still need an independent inquiry,'' survivor Rachel North wrote on her Internet blog.
Ministers had been confident that plans were in place to deal with any major attack, and the emergency services had carried out a number of high-profile drills to prepare for such an eventuality.
The report will now call for a network of suitable emergency centres to be set up across the country, such as schools and churches, to deal with future incidents, the Times reported.
Reuters
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