Olympic host city under scrutiny amid riots

LONDON (AP):

A few miles from the worst violence to hit the city in 25 years, beach volleyball players dived headlong in the sand, the most summery of Olympic sports on display less than a year before the London Games.

The matches were played under the shadow of the London Eye big wheel, and not far from Buckingham Palace and No. 10 Downing Street. Yet, no historic backdrop could block the images of rioting and looting that have swept the city the past three days and left a mark on British sports.

The soccer game between England and The Netherlands at Wembley was the biggest casualty. And as officials of the International Olympic Committee arrived to review progress leading to the 2012 Games, they were greeted by a forbidding landscape a short way from where the Olympics will unfold.

Plumes of smoke rose from run-down neighbourhoods. Businesses closed early - many of them boarded up - as authorities struggled to contain the country's worst unrest since race riots set London ablaze in the 1980s.

It was hardly the image Britain hoped to present to the world. This was a time when fans should have been revelling in the expectation of a successful Olympics and the start of the English soccer season.

Worried about disorder

Instead, athletes fielded calls from worried relatives watching TV footage of burning buildings and vehicles. Officials tried to downplay the impact of the violence that began Saturday night in the Tottenham area of north London, following the fatal shooting of a local man by police.

"My friends and family have been calling," Canadian beach volleyball player Heather Bansley said. "They keep checking in to make sure we're OK. It's not a great thing to be happening to London."

The disorder comes less than two weeks after London celebrated with great fanfare the one-year countdown to the opening of the Games on July 27, 2012.

On Monday, the violence spread to Hackney, one of the boroughs encompassing the Olympic Park in east London. The unrest took place about four miles from the park, site of the main Olympic Stadium and other key venues.

Prime Minister David Cameron and London Mayor Boris Johnson cut short their vacations to head back to the capital, as organisers defended security planning and pressed ahead with preparations for the world's biggest sports festival.

"We have a commitment to deliver a safe and secure games, and we will do so," Olympics Minister Hugh Robertson said. "All the evidence shows this trouble is low-level criminality driven by messages on social networks and not some new, emerging security threat."

More than 500 people have been arrested in London and more than 100 charged so far.

DAMAGE AT A GLANCE

Tottenham:

Forty-five homes and 100 shops ruined

Five buildings with 'serious' structural damage

Mental-health services forced to close

Repairs to streets estimated to cost £227,000

Transport for London assessing cost of damage to High Road

Elsewhere:

Police car smashed in Enfield Town

Enfield Sainsbury's smashed and looted

Sony warehouse in Enfield on fire, jobs lost

Reeves furniture store in Croydon torched to the ground

Debenhams and Currys ransacked in Clapham Junction

Bus set on fire in Peckham

Brixton Footlocker set on fire

Peckham commercial buildings ablaze

Ealing shopping centre set on fire

Cars burned in Bristol as rioters raided jewellery shops

Mobbers loot Tesco and burn cars in Liverpool

£500,000 worth of damage to Birmingham's high-end shopping centre

England friendly against Holland at Wembley postponed

Over 215 arrested, more than 27 charged

More than 50 police officers injured

- Taken from The VOICE .

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