Five Days after London Terror Attacks, Families Give up Hope of Finding Loved Ones Alive

LONDON (AP) -- Five days after London's devastating terrorist attacks, friends and relatives of the missing were rapidly giving up hopes of finding them alive as authorities formally identified more slain victims.

''We're waiting to hear what we already know in our hearts to be fact,'' said the Rev. Tim Daplyn, whose 26-year-old niece, Elizabeth, hasn't been heard from since Thursday's bombings. ''The tense of the language we are using to describe her has changed to 'was' rather than 'is.'''

Metropolitan Police spokesman James Nadin said Tuesday that authorities don't have a number of missing because it's too difficult to estimate. But he said calls to the police Casualty Bureau _ which had been flooded with inquiries from people frantic for information about friends and loved ones _ had tapered off.

Nadin said police liaison officers were aiding 78 families, but added that the officers were sent only to those whose loved ones were either presumed dead or were known to have been traveling near one of the bombing sites.

Two more of the dead were officially identified Tuesday, joining Susan Levy _ a 53-year-old mother of two _ and two other victims whose names have not been released by their families.

Late Tuesday, investigators said a total of 11 bodies had been positively identified by the Identity Commission so far, but their names were not released.

Philip Stuart Russell _ who worked for finance firm JP Morgan and would have celebrated his 29th birthday Monday _ and Jamie Gordon, 30, were confirmed to have been killed in the blast that ripped apart a double-decker bus in Tavistock Square.

For days, friends, family members and co-workers have kept vigil for those who haven't been heard from since the attacks on three Underground subway trains and a double-decker bus. But with so much time having passed since the bombings, few were still clinging to hopes of a happy reunion.

Journalists far outnumbered families still tacking up posters of missing relatives Tuesday outside the King's Cross subway station, where a mound of flowers and cards laid by passers-by against an iron fence and at the foot of a tree grew in tribute to the victims.

Although the family of Anthony Fatayi-Williams, 26, now presumes he was among the 13 people killed in the bus attack, ''we just cannot accept what has happened,'' a friend, Shiyan Smith, said Tuesday as he placed flowers on the steps of a nearby church.

Others refused to believe the worst.

''We're not giving up hope,'' said Richard Deer, whose Polish-born girlfriend, Karolina Gluck, 29, was believed to have been traveling on the Piccadilly Line between King's Cross and Russell Square _ the site of the worst of the blasts, which killed at least 21 people.

''She's a beautiful woman and we're asking why,'' Deer said.

As workers continue the slow and painstaking effort to retrieve corpses and body parts from the hot, dusty and rat-infested Piccadilly Line tunnel, Nadin said officials were mindful of relatives' desperate need for answers and closure _ even if it's not the outcome they're hoping for.

''Obviously, they're trying to do it as quickly as possible,'' he said. ''For the sake of the families, we realize that they want to get on with the process of burying their loved ones. It's a very difficult situation down there.''

Russell _ the JP Morgan worker confirmed dead Tuesday _ got onto the wrong bus and it cost him his life.

Russell normally got off the Underground at Moorgate station, but the bombings forced him to get off early at Euston station. His father, Grahame Russell, believes he hopped onto the wrong bus _ the No. 30 that was blown up _ because he didn't know the area well.

''I'm just trying to mourn and grieve his loss. He's a wonderful kid that was in the wrong place at the wrong time,'' Grahame Russell said.

Gordon, the other victim confirmed dead Tuesday, last was heard from when he called his asset management firm in central London on Thursday to say he was on his way to work aboard a bus.

His girlfriend, Yvonne Nash, used her position with a cell phone network company to trace Gordon's cell phone to the debris of the double-decker bus.

''Jamie was a kind, caring person who always put other people first,'' Nash said in a statement Tuesday.

The first family to go public with their darkest fears were the parents of Helen Jones, who issued a heart-wrenching statement Sunday acknowledging her almost certain death.

Jones, a 28-year-old accountant, was a student in the Scottish town of Lockerbie when Pan Am Flight 103 exploded overhead and crashed, killing 270 people in the air and on the ground.

Like so many whose loved ones have gone missing, Jones' family in Scotland held out hope that she might have survived the London attacks Thursday. But her parents said they were sure she was on the Piccadilly Line near the bombing site.

''We have sadly come to the conclusion that she was in one of the carriages that were involved in the blast, and that she died with so many others,'' her family said in a statement asking ''to be left in peace to attempt to come to terms with the consequences of this barbaric act.''

''Helen will live on in the hearts of her family and her many, many friends,'' the statement said.

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Associated Press writers Sarah Blaskovich and Catherine McAloon in London contributed to this story.