London death toll reaches 52, Blair pledges manhunt

Prime minister promised a "vigorous and intense" search for attackers.

LONDON -- In a city reeling from its worst attack since World War II, the messages fluttering in a light breeze Monday atop a mound of flowers for the victims mirrored the sorrow and anger sweeping London.

"God bless London," said a card nestled among the bouquets laid outside the King's Cross Underground station, near the site of the worst of last week's four terrorist strikes.

"May the perpetrators rot in hell," read another.

Police raised the death toll to 52 as workers continued the gruesome task of combing twisted wreckage for more bodies. Authorities identified the first of the victims -- a 53-year-old married mother of two and a 51-year-old office cleaner who left for work last Thursday and never made it home.

In a somber address to the House of Commons, his first since the bombings, Prime Minister Tony Blair said it seemed probable that Islamic extremists were responsible and promised a "vigorous and intense" manhunt to bring the attackers to justice.

No specific intelligence could have prevented the strikes, he said.

"Our country will not be defeated by such terror," he told lawmakers, denouncing the attacks as a "murderous carnage of the innocent."

"We will pursue those responsible wherever they are and will not rest until they are identified and ... brought to justice," he said.

President Bush expressed solidarity with Britain on Monday, saying, "America will not retreat in the face of terrorists and murderers."

The search for bodies was playing out in mangled subway cars marooned in a hot, dusty, rat-infested tunnel. The body count, authorities warned, likely would climb higher.

"That will rise," Metropolitan Police commissioner Sir Ian Blair said outside the King's Cross station near the bloodiest of the four bombings -- an explosion that killed at least 21 people on one of the Underground's deepest lines.

"They still have to get underneath the carriages, and it is possible they will find more" bodies, he said.

Two other subway trains and a double-decker bus also were destroyed in the attacks, which wounded 700 people. Fifty-six remained hospitalized Monday, many in critical condition, officials said.

Police identified the first of the victims -- Susan Levy, 53, of Hertfordshire outside London.