Terror as evacuation order given

Trains ground to a halt, homes were plunged into darkness and the lights went out across the capital. Deep underground, Tube passengers feared the worst when they heard the words "evacuate immediately" repeatedly boom from the Tannoy.

When they finally got off the trains, some of which had been stuck in tunnels for more than 30 minutes, they filed in terrified silence up stationary escalators in the gloom of emergency lighting.

Confused and not knowing what was happening above ground, many thought it was a fire or, worse, a terrorist attack.

"We were thinking all sorts of things when the lights went dim," one commuter said.

A quarter-of-a-million people were trapped on the Tube, with 60 per cent of the network shut down and 800 trains out of action; above ground, 1,000 trains were halted.

More than 270 traffic lights failed and 150,000 homes from Wimbledon in the south-west through Westminster to Orpington in Kent lost their power. A hundred people were rescued from lifts.

Today, as London Underground struggled to get services running normally, ministers and the hundreds of thousands of people who suffered were demanding answers from the National Grid.

Among those hit was Susie Bennett, 22, who was trapped in a sweltering tunnel outside Piccadilly Circus for 35 minutes shortly after 6pm. She said that when the announcement came, telling passengers they might have to walk through the tunnel to safety, there was fear they would be electrocuted if the power came on.

"It was like something in a film," said Miss Bennett, from Egham. "I was expecting flames to come leaping up."

Jenny Choi, 24, a buyer's assistant for John Lewis, was on a Tube which pulled into Piccadilly Circus just as the lights went out.

Her first thought was that a fire had broken out when the announcer said there was a power failure.

"They told everyone to evacuate the platform immediately. That caused panic," Miss Choi said.

"We got off the train but it was dark in the station too. There were two escalators going up, but one of them had stopped and that caused more panic. It was really scary. "

Network Rail was also badly affected. All its stations in south London came to a halt. North of the river, hundreds of passengers waited underneath the departure boards at Victoria station to see how long they would have to wait.

And at Euston, where services have already been badly hit by engineering works, police evacuated the station after overcrowding caused by the surge from the Tube station.

Some passengers were stuck in trains for up to two hours. One service between Charing Cross and London Bridge was delayed for even longer as passengers climbed out of the train.

"Tens of thousands of passengers and hundreds of trains were affected by this," a Network Rail spokesman said. "We will certainly be asking National Grid what went wrong. It was thanks to a kind of Dunkirk spirit that people got through this."

All evening, the streets of central London were teeming with people who had no way to get home. Lengthy queues formed at bus stops and taxi ranks, and in the West End and the City crowds waited for information as emergency vehicles responded to a huge rise in rescue calls.

The London Fire Service said it responded to 600 calls in one hour - it normally takes 400 calls a day.

More than 250 sets of traffic lights failed, causing chaos on the roads. And hospitals such as St George's, Tooting, King's College Hospital, Denmark Hill and Guy's and St Thomas' went on to a "major incident" footing as they relied on generators to keep equipment functioning.

Authorities at all three hospitals said no patients had been harmed by the blackout.

It was commuters who bore the brunt of the chaos, as fears of a terror attack spread through the crowds. Rowan Andrews was on a Tube train leaving Bank station when the power failed.

"The Tube was packed and just pulling out when it ground to a halt," he said. "No one knew what was going on. Eventually we all had to leave the train and leave the station. It was chaos above ground, with thousands of people milling around on the streets not knowing what was going on."

Francis Burrows, a 23-year-old art gallery manager, walked in vain from Charing Cross station to Westminster in an effort to avoid a bus journey of more than two hours to his home in Woolwich.

"I am so angry and frustrated," he said. "But this is what you come to expect from the Tube. I am especially fed up with how the slightest thing goes wrong and then everything falls completely apart.

"The other thing we are rarely offered is alternative ways of getting home. I will be asking for compensation."

Debbie Wells, 26, who works for the Department of Health, tried to get a bus to Putney, but found them all full. "It was raining, but I couldn't put up my umbrella because Oxford Street was so packed," she said. "You would think they would put more buses on to ferry people home. Or at least have some sort of contingency plan."

By midnight, Tube managers had managed to provide a full service on only four of the 12 lines on the network.

The Central line, East London line, Hammersmith & City line and Waterloo & City line services were restored. But there were restrictions on all other lines five hours after the power came back.

London Underground confirmed that the last passengers led away to safety down tunnels emerged at Stockwell station at 7.30pm.

Yet despite the chaos and fear, there were flashes of humour.

Kelly Slater, 20, a student, was travelling home to Kent to see her family after working in York during the summer holiday.

"What a surprise welcome home," she joked. Referring to the massive power cut that hit New York earlier this month, she added: "It seems that everything that the Americans do, we have to follow."