GMB interrupted for urgent breaking news as 'major incident' announced

Presenters Ed Balls and Susanna Reid brought Good Morning Britain to a halt this morning in a major breaking news update. The ITV stars shared that a major incident had been declared after a train derailed on Monday morning, on the London to Glasgow main line near Cumbria.

Ed told viewers that emergency services are currently on the scene and there are no reported injuries as of yet. They then welcomed on Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander who said that their priority is to get people off the train safely and to look into why this has happened. "It is an emergency situation," she explained as she added that Avanti West Coast have started their protocols around a major incident. "We might expect some disruption on those lines, but the information that I have is that there are no injuries reported currently," the politician continued.

Susanna then referenced the attack on a train over the weekend, where multiple people were left injured after being stabbed. She said: "I don't want to speak for anyone on the train, but I can imagine if I was on a train this morning and something happened, like it derailed, I might wonder what was going on.

"I'd wonder whether someone was taking charge of the train or if there was some kind of copycat incident, based on what happened on Saturday. But is this just entirely a seperate incident and unfortunate coincidence that we have had two major incidents with trains in the last 48 to 72 hours?"

Ms Alexander replied: "To my knowledge, this is a complete coincidence and I would hope that the onboard train staff and driver would have communicated immediately with the passengers on the train in Cumbria to reassure them about the nature of that incident.

"As I said, our priority now is to make sure that we get those people off safely. The emergency services have attended as a precaution and that work will continue now."

It follows passengers travelling from Doncaster to London being attacked in a mass stabbing on a train on Saturday night.

Eleven people received treatment in the hospital following the attack. One - a member of the train staff - is in a "critical but stable condition".