NZ parents wait as bodies pulled from train

As more bodies were pulled from London's bombed underground train system today, the parents of a missing New Zealand woman waited in the city for news.

They arrived in London yesterday after a long-haul flight from New Zealand with the grim knowledge their daughter could have been a victim of the terrorist bombs which killed at least 49 people last Thursday.

The unnamed woman had lived in London for several years and held dual New Zealand and Irish citizenship.

Ireland's Sunday Independent newspaper reported that one of her grandparents was Irish.

The woman's parents requested her name and other details not be released, and New Zealand authorities would not confirm a report here today which she is a 26-year-old with family in Christchurch.

The Dominion Post reported the woman is the niece of Christchurch poet Bernadette Hall, but Hall's husband John Hall declined to comment.

"Nothing has been confirmed yet," he said.

New Zealand High Commission staff had yesterday met the woman's parents, booked them into a hotel, and put them in touch with a Metropolitan Police family liaison officer, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) spokesman told NZPA today.

Foreign Affairs Minister Phil Goff said the woman's parents were pretty exhausted... "going through a terrible period of time in their lives" .

Recovery work was continuing in a mangled carriage on the Piccadilly Line of the underground system -- which the New Zealand woman was understood to be riding -- in temperatures of up to 60degC.

The Piccadilly Line is one of the deepest tunnels in the network.

"There are quite a lot of bodies to be recovered, including from underneath the train," Mr Goff told National Radio.

"It's going to take some time -- because this is the carriage in which the bomb went off, some of the bodies recovered will be very difficult to be identify."

It would take another 24 to 48 hours for the work to be done and for identities to be determined, Mr Goff said.

No other New Zealanders were known to be missing in the four London train and bus blasts, Mr Goff said.

New Zealand citizens were still calling in and confirming their safety from England and other countries such as Spain.

Latest News

* Police urge Londoners to get back to work to show the suspected al Qaeda bombers they had not cowed the British capital into submission

* Britain is on high alert in case the killers strike again

* British police appeal to the public for images taken at the sites of last week's suspected al Qaeda bomb attacks

* Investigators also ask mobile phone and internet companies to store the content of voicemails, emails and SMS text messages on day of bombings

* Police arrest three terrorist suspects at Heathrow airport, but say they have no reason so far to link them to Thursday's suspected al Qaeda bombings in London.
* Birmingham police evacuate 20,000 people from the city centre on Saturday night and carry out four controlled explosions on a bus.

* They find no bombs but say their measures had been justified.

* 49 confirmed dead in Thursday's blasts

* In Rome, Pope Benedict laments what he calls "revolting terrorist acts" and prays for the dead and the 700 people injured

* British Muslims say they have been subjected to a higher than usual level of abuse since Thursday's bomb attacks

QUOTES

* "London is open for business. If we don't do that, then the terrorists will have won and that's not what we want," said Deputy Chief Constable Andy Trotter.

* "I think we are proceeding on the assumption that the bombers are still at large and of course that adds a special urgency to figuring out who's done this," said US Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.

* "We believe that these images may contain vital information to assist us with the investigation," Deputy Assistant Commissioner Brian Paddick told a news conference.

- NZPA