7/7 inquests: Bomb explosion was "like a dream" says survivor

Australian office worker Alison Sayer was injured as she travelled from her north London home to a meeting in Reading.

She said the bomb exploded as she read a text message while the train moved off from Edgware Road station.

Miss Sayer said the blast was "like a dream" and she cannot describe the noise because it happened so quickly.

She added: "I think it was a noise so loud I have never heard it before.

"I just remember hearing it and turning towards it and seeing fire coming across my head across the roof of the carriage."

Miss Sayer said she was helped by two men after coming to lying on the train track.

Bill Mann, who was travelling to work from Upminster, north-east London, said the carriage of the west bound Circle Line service was left mangled and blackened.

In a statement read at the Royal Courts of Justice today, he said it was like "being inside an exploded firework", adding: "You have bits of it blown out and just black and soot."

Mr Mann was one of several survivors whose accounts were read out as the inquiry turned to those murdered by suicide bomber Mohammed Sidique Khan.

Describing the explosion, he said: "My first memory is being thrown through the air.

"I do not remember being lifted from my seat but I do remember being halfway from one side of the carriage to the next.

"The lights went out, I do not remember them going out but when I was flying through the air it was dark.

"There were sparks raining down on us, but I think it must have been burning embers from the bomb."

Mr Mann added: "I remember thinking, 'I could die here' and being incredibly angry because I thought it was a train crash.

"I thought what a bloody stupid way to die, to go leaving a wife and four children."

The eyewitness said several women began screaming hysterically and panicking as he tried to console an autistic man who was also struggling to cope.

Christopher Randall was caught up in the Edgware Road blast as he travelled from north London to work at the Daily Mail in Kensington.

He said he was daydreaming when he was suddenly knocked to the floor amid "blinding light and intense heat".

Mr Randall added: "I do not remember any explosion, just people screaming around me."

The witness said there were people lying on the floor around a crater in the carriage floor and he suffered burns to his face and hands.

Ian O'Hara, who was travelling from Chingford to Kensington High Street, used a T-shirt from his gym kit to staunch a bloody head wound.

Describing the blast, he said at first there was a lot of confusion, but people quickly calmed down before evacuating the train.

He said: "I saw a blinding white overwhelming flash of light followed by a loud piercing bang that made my ears ring and the whole carriage was in darkness.

"It was pitch black for a while. There was a lot of black smoke, the sooty type, that had a terrible smell to it, like burning.

"There was a lot of screaming, particularly from the front of the train. I ended up on the floor, having tumbled forward."

Abigail Priestly, who was at the back of the first carriage, suffered cuts and bruises from flying glass.

She described a loud bang as she was reading her newspaper that plunged the carriage into darkness.

Miss Priestly said the blast knocked the door between the carriages off its hinges and smashed the window.

She added: "Initially it was quite subdued. Then, as the dust settled and people realised what had happened, there were screams and people moaning in pain and calling out for help."

Miss Priestly said she thought she had been involved in a train crash and only found out a bomb had exploded when police interviewed her several hours later.