MSNBC News Services
LONDON - A fire at an east London warehouse on the 2012 Olympics site sent a towering column of black smoke over the British capital Monday, authorities said. There were no reports of injuries.
The blaze broke out shortly after noon on the western boundary of the Olympic Park site in Stratford, the Olympic Delivery Authority said.
Police said there was nothing to suggest a suspicious cause. “We only know it’s a fire,” a Metropolitan Police spokeswoman said. “There’s nothing to suggest anything else at the moment.”
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In July 2005, suicide bombers killed 52 people on London’s transport system and there have been several unsuccessful attacks since then, keeping Londoners’ nerves on edge.
The industrial area, about 5½ miles east of central London, is under extensive reconstruction for the 2012 Summer Olympics. Olympics officials said the fire broke out near the site where the main press center will be located.
Building coming down anyway?
“We heard this small bang and came rushing out,” said Danny Cherry, a print worker. “What we could see was just so much smoke.”
“I think it’s actually an old clothes factory,” Cherry said. ““It’s an old building that they were going to knock down anyway.”
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Printer Paul Izzet was 50 yards from the site when the blaze started. “After 10 minutes, it was like having your face six inches from a coal fire, it was that hot,” he said. “It was really beginning to warm up.”
One railway line was closed because of smoke, Network Rail said. Transport for London, the agency that operates bus and subway services, said there were three bus garages in the area but none was involved in the fire.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
City of London, approximately 5.5 km (3.4 miles) from the fire. 
A huge fire was reported in Hackney Wick eastern London, England, on part of the 2012 Olympic Games site scheduled to be the location of the handball courts.

Flames are visible from Canary Wharf and the smoke plume is visible across the whole of the City of London. The fire, at a disused single-storey warehouse in Waterden Road, Stratford, is said to have been reported around 12:05 GMT. The Associated Press reports say that a "large explosion" preceded the fire; eyewitnesses do not confirm this, though there is flammable material on the site.  David Jones of East London Bus company states that the fire started at a disused warehouse adjacent to their Waterden Road depot.

Eight fire appliances and 40 fire-fighters were initially deployed. The winds carried the smoke over London and reports suggested that the plume of smoke was visible from Rochester, Kent.

By 13:15 GMT the London Fire Brigade reported that there were 15 appliances and around 75 firefighters, and the fire was not yet under control.

Police say they have no evidence of a terrorist attack at this time.

Charles Buchanan of London City Airport told BBC News that the airport was still operational but had closed one runway whose flight path crosses the smoke plume, though services are unaffected.  A short stretch of railway close to Hackney Wick was temporarily closed but suffered no damage.

London Ambulance Service confirms that there are no known casualties and their emergency response team has been stood down, though their hazardous area team remains on site. Police are holding back large crowds of bystanders.