Bermuda-based firms yesterday said staff in their London offices were accounted for and safe in the wake of a deadly terrorist attack hitting the city's public transportation system, a means for many London employees to travel to work.

At least one Bermudian working in London was stuck on her train yesterday morning because of the attack, while others were shaken by being so close to some of the attack sites.

This was true in the case of seven staff working at the London office of Bermuda law firm Appleby Spurling and Hunter, which was said to be within close range of one of the underground stations attacked.

"Our address is 2 Royal Exchange Buildings, next to the Bank of England in the City of London financial district. Three of the [underground stations affected are within one half mile," Warren Cabral, resident partner of Appleby's London office and former head of the firm's insurance team said.

All seven Appleby staff were safe and the office was "fully operational". Mr. Cabral and others were however facing the prospect of walking home, some long distances, because public transportation was at a standstill yesterday.

"It has been a strange couple of days in London: universal euphoria yesterday at winning the Olympic bid, then today general mayhem," said Bermudian lawyer Mark Chudleigh, who works for London law firm Sedgwick, Detert, Moran & Arnold LLP. He and other Bermudians he had been able to contact were all safe.

"At least it has stopped raining in time for the long walk home from work that many of us are facing with the tube being down," Mr. Chudleigh said yesterday afternoon.

London is the home to scores of Bermudians and those with Bermuda connections. Numerous of those are in the UK to work for Bermuda-based companies, including non-insurance ventures like Butterfield bank and the Island's two largest law firms, that have London operations employing a combined total of well over 1,000 staff. Carol Parker Trott, a Bermudian who works in London for XL Capital, said the mainline, or above-ground train, reopened in the afternoon but the underground system remained shut.

Mrs. Parker Trott, a former Royal Gazette news editor who is now corporate communications manager for XL Services UK Limited, commutes everyday to XL's headquarters in the heart of London's financial centre on the London underground.

Yesterday she was stranded for an hour when her train was stopped because of the first of several attacks on the city's transportation system.

She said she was nowhere near any of the attacks when they occurred and that XL's London headquarters, at 70 Gracechurch Street, were also "hundreds of yards" away from the Liverpool Station, which was one of the underground stations hit in the deadly attack that also destroyed a double decker bus.

XL Capital has about 550 staff in its London office. Mrs. Parker Trott, who is part of the company's crisis management team said there were no reports of any staff being injured in the attack. She described the emotions at work yesterday as "calm considering what was going on. Most people were wondering what was going on, and were a bit stunned". XL managers in London were working yesterday with the Human Resources Dept. to double check that all staff were accounted for. Police instructed the company to keep employees in doors as a precaution, a measure not eased until about four in the afternoon, Mrs. Parker Trott said.

AXIS Capital chief executive John Charman, a veteran of the Lloyd's of London market, said its 40 London staff and their families were safe after what he called "a truly dreadful and cowardly attack". He described the City as in a state of "lockdown".

"I would expect to have a skeleton staff for the rest of the week as the transportation and security issues are resolved. Most of our staff are able to work from home. I believe by early next week London will be back to some degree of normality," Mr. Charman said.

Law firm Conyers Dill & Pearman said its nine London staff were safe and the office was functioning as normal. And Bermuda-based reinsurance group Imagine said its London staff of 50 employees were safe.

The company decided to send staff home after the attacks and asked them to work from home today, chief financial officer Mike Daly said. Butterfield Bank, which counts about 100 employees in its London operation, said all staff "well and accounted for and our offices on Gresham Street were not impacted".

Both Butterfield and XL in London said they had spent much of the day trying to determine if staff would be able to find a way home. XL offered to put up staff in the office or nearby but Mrs. Parker Trott said in the end all employees were able to make their way home. She expected the office to be open today as usual, as did Butterfield Bank in London.

ACE Limited spokesperson Robert Grieves said its London office was open yesterday, and all staff were safe.