A Bermudian student was shaken by Tuesday's bomb explosion in the Paris subway, as he waited to board a train one stop away.

Mr. Colm Singleton, the son of Mr. Derek and Mrs. Sallie Singleton of Southampton, was in the Luxembourg station one stop away from the Saint-Michel subway station at the time of the blast.

Seven people have died and 84 are wounded, more than a dozen seriously, as a result of the explosion on the Left Bank of the Seine.

Mr. Singleton, 19, a Princeton University student, is in Paris taking a summer course in history and architecture at The Sorbonne.

His class was out in the French capital looking at churches and other buildings and the field trip style class ended sharp at 5.30 p.m., he told The Royal Gazette yesterday.

To get back to their residences, the students had a choice between Luxembourg and Saint-Michel stations, which were about the same distance away.

"We actually, fortunately, went down to Luxembourg station,'' said Mr.

Singleton, who was with two friends at the time of the blast. "The stop that (the bomb) was at I'd been at twice that day.

"It's a station I've used every day since I've been here.'' A friend of his was in the Saint-Michel station, where she was thrown against the platform wall but not injured.

In the Luxembourg station, Mr. Singleton and his friends heard "this enormous explosion,'' and "first we thought it was a crash,'' he said.

A sound wave moved through the train tunnel and caused the whole station to shake.

"Then, nobody paid any attention to it, and we just sat down and waited for the train.'' But after five minutes, no train had arrived, and "a panicky voice'' came on the intercom, asking commuters to vacate the station.

Mr. Singleton and his friends made the two-minute hike over to Saint-Michel, which was blocked off by Police and surrounded by fire trucks and ambulance.

He snapped photographs of the chaos.

At first, "it didn't really hit me how close it was,'' he said. "A close call just makes you give thanks for being alive and enjoy life while you live it.'' Although he was nervous, he was back on the subway yesterday, saying taxis were too expensive and the bus system too complex to leave much choice.

Mr. Singleton, who returns to Bermuda on Sunday, attended Saltus Grammar School and was last year's recipient of the Sir Henry Tucker Scholarship.