A NORTH-EAST woman who was on the top deck of the London bus ripped apart by a bomb told last night of her amazing escape.

Lisa French was only feet away from the blast that killed 13 people but she walked away with only a few scratches.

"All of the seats behind us had gone and everything was gone.

"It just wasn't there any more," said Lisa, who lives in Heaton, Newcastle.

She had intended to catch the Tube but because of earlier bomb attacks was directed to the No 30 bus instead.

And as the double-decker approached Tavistock Square at 9.47am on Thursday the bomb exploded - ripping off the roof and splitting the side panels.

Lisa cannot believe how she survived despite sitting upstairs when the bus blew up - leaving mangled wreckage and bodies across the road.

She cannot remember the blast itself because her eardrums burst, but recalled the chaos afterwards and a terrible smell.

"I just remember the light fading, which must have been the end of the flash," she told ITV News.

"As I looked up and looked around, the roof of the bus had gone and you could feel things coming over the back of your head - dust and smoke.

"Everybody in front of us started to stand up and gaze around and everybody was just bewildered.

"People were screaming and shouting. There were sirens going off.

"It was chaos, but it was very still standing on the top of the bus and looking around."

Lisa, who had just arrived at King's Cross for a meeting in the capital, added: "It was almost like it had always been like that and you had just been put in the middle of it and you couldn't understand how it had got like that.

"It was very eerie and very surreal, and just bewildering.

"It felt very shocking. It was just surreal looking around.

"The smell was awful. I have never smelt anything like it - just burning metal, and it took hours and hours, the smell didn't really go away until Friday. It was horrible."

Lisa said she thought people instinctively knew the explosion had been a bomb but did not realise it was on the bus.

But she said that, unusually, people had been talking to strangers before the explosion because they had heard about the disruption to the Tube and were trying to work out what was going on.

"But people were quite relaxed, there was nothing to suggest that anything was going to happen to that bus," she added.

Lisa and other shaken and dazed survivors climbed down by the stairwell and ran into a nearby office building, but then were told to move by police.

"We all had to run back out really quickly, which was probably one of the scariest parts, to have to run back out to it all," she said.

She praised the generosity and kindness of those who helped them, including a hairdresser in whose shop they sheltered.

Lisa had been due to attend a meeting for BT, but was unable to get the Northern Line from King's Cross, at 9am, so walked to Euston.

Not realising the gravity of the crisis unfolding, she rang her husband and told him that there was some kind of problem but that she was safe.

When she could not get a train at Euston, she was directed to the No 30 bus and sat in the middle of the top deck, next to another female commuter.

"I asked her if I could sit with her, and I sat down and people were just chatting about what they thought was going on. It was quite calm.

"She saved my life, the girl I sat next to really, when I chose to sit with her."

Lisa said she could not remember seeing any children upstairs but that there were quite a lot of young people in their early twenties, and a couple who had heard the Tube explosion in Edgware.

"That was really the first suggestion that there was perhaps something going on other than just a police alert or a threat," she said.

After the blast, the couple could not be seen.

"We couldn't find the couple we'd been talking to," said Lisa.

"There was no sign of them whatsoever. Their chairs were gone and they weren't there anymore."

She added: "There can be no point that needs to be made through that kind of violence. It wasn't directed at anybody in particular, so they didn't hurt the people they wanted to."

She said the attack had made her value the small things in life more.

"I'll never worry about silly things again. It just makes you realise how lucky you are to be alive."