Hasmita Shah, 1993

Half past ten on a Saturday morning and the world around me is suddenly shattered as a door comes off its hinges and flies through. 

My first thought is to thank God for not bringing in my children to work. I then think I should never be working here. People around me comfort me as they realise I’m distressed.

It seems an eternity before I can use the telephone.

Why won’t that incessant alarm stop ringing? 

I look at the destruction caused as I try to sound calm on the phone.

Surely this is not real? – this is not my place of work, not where I came in this morning.

Hours later we are asked to walk down. 

My legs are like jelly after the 36 flights down. 

The devastation on the ground floors and outside is clear for all to see. It looks like I’m in a war zone.

The glass that has been shattered is ¾ inches thick. 

Surely this is a movie I’m in. In real life buildings are not destroyed in a split second.

I feel numb- a kind of dulling ache.

I just want to go home. 

It’s still not safe to go.

There are more security alerts.

There is falling glass everywhere. I’m told one landing on my head would kill me.

Why don’t I feel any fear? – just this numbness.

We finally get a police escort.

We are told to walk quickly in single file treading carefully to ensure nothing is disturbed.

The destruction is everywhere. 

Is this where I came in in the morning? 

I finally get to a tube station.

They announce that the trains are delayed due to an explosion at Liverpool Street.

I want to tell them what happened. I want to scream. I SURVIVED THE BOMB!

On TV we are labelled as victims or survivors depending on the channel you watch.

My three and a half year old son picks up on all the conversations in the room and asks innocently ‘ Mummy, why did the bombers bomb the Nat West Tower’ Why indeed? 

How do I explain to him the wanton destruction, the complete disregard for human life, the senseless crazy acts committed by adults in search of a perverted sense of justice?

I just hug him tightly and tell him I really don’t know but that we must pray for them for they not what they do.