LONDON (AFP) — Prince Charles joined victims' families in London's Hyde Park Tuesday for the unveiling of a memorial to the 52 victims of the city's 2005 suicide bombings.
On the fourth anniversary of the July 7 attacks, around 700 people huddled in the rain for the dedication of 52 stainless steel pillars, one for each person killed when bombs ripped through three Underground trains and a bus.
"I pray they will gain comfort and strength from coming together to honour the memory of those taken from us," Charles said in a speech.
The monument "fulfils a deeply held need, for each one offers a path to peace and healing, each one honours the dead and each reminds us to lead our lives in a way that would make them proud," he added.
The pillars are grouped in four clusters, representing the four separate explosions carried out by young Islamic extremists, who also died in the attacks.
Each stands 3.5 metres high and features an inscription of the time, place and date of the four bombings, plus the number of people killed at each one.
A plaque naming all those who died has been erected separately.
The million pound monument was built in consultation with victims' relatives, some of whom chatted with Charles and Prime Minister Gordon Brown at Tuesday's event.
"One of the fantastic things about the monument is that it reflects the individual and the collective and shows the connectivity of events," said Saba Mozakka, 28, whose mother Behnaz was killed on one of the trains and who is on an advisory board for the memorial.
Louise Gray, 37, whose husband Richard was killed in the attacks, added: "This is a way of ensuring Richard is going to be remembered in a permanent place. This is more of a happy memory than a sad occasion for me."
Charles said in his speech he had some understanding of the grief the relatives of those who died must feel because his beloved great-uncle, Louis Mountbatten, was killed in an Irish Republican Army (IRA) bomb blast on his boat in Ireland in 1979.
The London bombings came the day after euphoric celebrations in London after it won the right to stage the 2012 Olympic Games and as G8 leaders met in Scotland.
London Mayor Boris Johnson was also at the unveiling and said: "We have done much to make London safer but today reminds us that London's strength ultimately lies with its people."
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