SINGAPORE — Shortly after the London attack on Saturday night (UK time), Singaporean restaurateur Ellen Chew, 49, received a call from her business partner, informing her that something had happened at London Bridge.

Alarmed, she tried to drive there with another friend, as her Spanish tapas restaurant Lobos is at Borough Market, near London Bridge Station. But she could not get near it, as the entire area had been cordoned off.

Ms Chew called her employees to find out about the situation on the ground. It was a full house in the restaurant, with about 15 to 18 employees on duty that night.

“The manager ran to the door. He didn’t have the keys to lock it, but he tried to close the door, and he saw the entire scene right in front of him. An attacker was maybe 20 to 30cm away from him,” she told TODAY from London. “He saw the stabbing, and the attacker was running past him.”

While the attackers did not enter the premises, her manager saw at least three people stabbed outside the front door.

It was only more than an hour later, some time after 11pm, that the police told her staff to leave. They fled, leaving their belongings in the restaurant.

Her partner tried to return to the restaurant around 8am, but the area was still cordoned off. The police told her partner that access was restricted, as the restaurant was “too close to the actual scene”.

It will be closed until the police give the green light to enter. Meanwhile, her employees were given the day off.

“Everyone’s quite shaken, so they should just take a rest,” said Ms Chew.

“There will be an aftermath (in terms of business operations), I’m sure. But there is nothing much we can do. It takes a while for things to become normal again.”