PASSENGERS were seen badly burned and covered in blood after what police described as a " terrorist incident " on a London Underground train on Friday, September 15.
Witnesses reported seeing passengers with facial burns and hair coming off at Parsons Green station and seeing a fire or hearing an explosion on the train.
Police said "a number of people" were injured as Prime Minister Theresa May's office said she would be chairing an emergency cabinet meeting later on Friday.
Emergency services said they were called around 8:20 a.m.
Armed police and sniffer dogs were seen on the train and around the station, which is set in a leafy suburb of southwest London popular with well-off commuters and filled with chic cafes.
"Terrorist incident declared at Parsons Green Underground Station," police said in a statement.
"It is too early to confirm the cause of the fire, which will be subject to the investigation that is now underway by the Met's Counter Terrorism Command," it said.
Twitter user @Rrigs, who posted pictures of a white bucket smoldering on the train, said: "Explosion on Parsons Green District Line train. Fireball flew down carriage and we just jumped out open door".
The bucket looked like the type used by builders and there appeared to be cables coming out of it.
The station was closed, as well as an entire section of the District Line where it is located and police urged people to stay away from the area.
A Metro.co.uk reporter at the scene was quoted by the paper as saying that some passengers were "really badly burned" and their "hair was coming off".
The incident would be the fifth terror attack in six months in Britain since March, when a lone attacker mowed down pedestrians and stabbed a police officer outside the British parliament.
British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, a former London mayor, appealed for calm.
"Obviously, everybody should keep calm and go about their lives in a normal way, as normal as they possibly can," he told Sky News. (Agence France Presse)