Condolences deluge London in wake of disaster

Acting on instinct
Newspapers hailed him as a hero, but former firefighter Paul Dadge insisted he was just acting on instinct when he gave first-aid to about half a dozen victims of the bombing between the King’s Cross and Russell Square stations.

Photos of Dadge, 28, who now works for a telecommunications company, appeared Friday in many of London’s dailies, showing him helping a burn victim.

Dadge said he was traveling by subway when his train suddenly stopped. He and other passengers exited the station, and when he surfaced, Dadge saw bloodied victims.

“I was trained in first-aid when I was in the fire service, but to be honest, I think it was instinct more than training that took over,” he said. “I always seem to be in the wrong place at the right time.

Flood of condolences
Books of condolence were set up around the world, but one had a special resonance for Britons — the book in Belfast, Northern Ireland, rocked over the decades by sectarian violence.

“We faced 30 years of terrorist attacks across Northern Ireland with thousands of people losing their lives,” Mayor Wallace Browne said.

“We therefore can empathize with the plight that the citizens of London now face,” he said. “The greatest lesson learned was that despite sustained efforts from those wishing to inflict optimum mayhem, we must never falter.”

Among the first to sign the book at Belfast’s City Hall was David Blunkett, a former British home secretary.

“There is a certain poignancy to signing the book of condolence here in Belfast which has suffered so much through violence,” he said.

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