Tower Hill station evacuated after phone charger explodes on Tube

Police not treating 'small explosion' that sparked fire alert as suspicious

A Tube station has been evacuated after a phone charger exploded on a District Line train.

The London Fire Brigade said it had dealt with a "small explosion" from the device at Tower Hill.

Firefighters were called shortly before 12.30pm but arrived to find the blaze was already out.

Mali Siloko was standing next to the man who had the charger. “Something exploded and caught fire,” she told The Independent.

“He threw it out of his hands and it fell on the floor. It looked like a white charger attached to a phone.”

Ms Siloko said the man appeared to have burned his fingers but no one else was injured.

Andy Brown, the London Ambulance Service's incident response officer, said: “We treated a man at the scene for a hand injury, but he was not taken to hospital.”

Hundreds of people were evacuated from the station, which sits on the bank of the River Thames near the Tower of London and Tower Bridge.

Images appeared to show the device burning on the carriage floor, sending up a small plume of black smoke.

A spokesperson for British Transport Police said the blaze was not suspicious and was believed to "have been caused by a mobile phone charger overheating".

Tower Hill station was temporarily closed but has since reopened.

The incident caused alarm under two weeks after a homemade bomb exploded on the District Line at Parsons Green station.

Isis claimed responsibility for the attack, which saw 30 people injured by a fireball after the device failed to fully detonate.

Ahmed Hassan, an 18-year-old Iraqi refugee, has been charged with attempted murder and explosives offences over the attack.

The UK's terror alert level remains at "severe", meaning further attacks are considered highly likely.