The flowers that were briefly at the underground station – the scene of the most deaths during the 2005 terrorist attacks

FLORAL tributes to the victims of the 7/7 bombings were removed from Russell Square tube station after just one day.

Ed Harker, whose friend was killed in the terrorist attack that killed 52 people on buses and tube trains in 2005, said the decision was “disrespectful”.

Flowers, wreaths and a book to sign are normally left in the station – where 26 people died and 240 were injured – for several days after each anniversary.

Mr Harker said: “I had a friend and work colleague who died that day, at Edgware Road. So every year I go and lay flowers there.
The ones at Russell Square are normally just underneath the permanent plaque that they have there in the station for about a week, usually until they die really.

“There are usually flowers from TfL, the hospitals, the BMA, but they had removed them by the next day. It is disrespectful to the people who died and their relatives and friends I think. I just found it really astonishing really, to remove them so quickly.”

The bomb at Russell Square, on a Piccadilly line train travelling south from King’s Cross, was the third device to be detonated on the London Underground by suicide bombers that morning. Half of the people who died were killed at Russell Square.

Mr Harker said: “There are lots of people who don’t live in London who come in, and it has becomes an important day for them. Afterwards I think it was a time that London came together.”

A TfL statement said: “Each year we remember the victims at events across London. As part of the remembrance, flowers and wreaths are left outside Russell Square station. TfL colleagues take great care in displaying these tributes in the station until the evening of the following day, when they are carefully moved to the official July 7 memorial at Tavistock Square.”