At least two people are dead after a terror attacker brought carnage to central London today, mowing down pedestrians on Westminster Bridge before attacking police with a knife in the grounds of the Houses of Parliament.
More than 12 people are said to have been hit by a vehicle on the bridge after a 4x4 drove into pedestrians and cyclists before crashing into the gates of Parliament.
An intruder, described by a witness as 'middle-aged and Asian', then managed to break into the grounds of the Parliament and stabbed a police officer before he was shot. The policeman is thought to have since died.
An hour after the attack, paramedics removed one person from the scene after extensive CPR. Another body appeared to have been left on the ground covered by a red blanket.
A doctor at St Thomas' Hospital has said one woman has died and a number of others have been hurt - including some with 'catastrophic' injuries.
Prime Minister Theresa May is said to have been bundled into a car by a plain-clothes police officer and driven quickly from the scene.
Scotland Yard said the attack, which comes a year to the day after the terrorist atrocities in Brussels, is being treated 'as a terrorist incident until we know otherwise'.
A spokesman for the Port of London Authority, which looks after safety on the River Thames, said: 'A female member of the public was recovered from the water near Westminster Bridge. She is alive but undergoing urgent medical treatment on a nearby pier. We believe she fell from the bridge.'
He said the river has been closed from Vauxhall to Embankment 'as part of the security response'.
Mail journalist Quentin Letts saw the incident out of the window of a Commons office. He told the BBC: 'We heard this sound that sounded like a car crash… Then we saw a thick set man in black clothes come through the gates where people would normally drive cars
'This man had something in his hand. It looked like a stick. He was challenged by two policemen. The policeman fell down.
'We could see the man in black moving his arm in a way that suggested he was either striking or stabbing.'
Kevin Schofield, the editor of PoliticsHome.com heard 'a very loud bang' from the press gallery inside the Houses of Parliament followed by lots of shouting and men running around.
He initially thought it was a car crash but then he looked outside the window to a heavily-guarded area outside which is out of bounds to the public.
He told Sky News: 'Someone rushed through, attacked a policeman, a policeman went down, another policeman came and he was rescued.
'The man who had assaulted him got up and he appeared to be carrying either a knife or a gun. Then we heard gunfire, lots of gunfire, maybe five or six rounds.
'All I remember seeing is the man approaching the police officer probably with a knife and then there was gunfire.'
Tourists who were riding the London Eye when the attack took place are currently being held inside the pods of the attraction as a safety measure.
The Ferris wheel's official Twitter account said given its close proximity to the Houses of Parliament, it would be keeping hold 'of all its guests as per tried and tested security procedures'.
Eyewitness Rick Longley described the attack saying: 'We were just walking up to the station and there was a loud bang and a guy, someone, crashed a car and took some pedestrians out.
'They were just laying there and then the whole crowd just surged around the corner by the gates just opposite Big Ben.
'A guy came past my right shoulder with a big knife and just started plunging it into the policeman. I have never seen anything like that. I just can't believe what I just saw.'
After the incident, Radoslaw Sikorski posted a video to Twitter purporting to show people lying injured in the road on Westminster Bridge.
Mr Sikorski, a senior fellow at Harvard's Centre for European Studies, wrote: 'A car on Westminster Bridge has just mowed down at least 5 people.'
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