Sept. 17, 2007 (LPAC)--Queues of thousands of anxious depositors began forming in front of branch offices of Northern Rock bank at three in the morning today in what is becoming Britain's biggest bank run in decades. Already 2 billion pounds ($4 billion) were withdrawn over the weekend in a bank that has only 24 billion pounds in deposits. Within minutes of the opening of the stock market their stock plunged and by midday lost 41%% of its value to 257p, driving down other bank shares including Alliance & Lancaster by more than 15% and Bradford & Bingley by 11%. Both the latter are mortgage lenders reflecting that fact that the British mortgage bubble has burst. Bradford & Bingley has 20% of the British mortgage market.

One pensioner depositor was quoted saying in today's Guardian, "Unfortunately I'm doing what everybody else is doing and panicking...I'm joining the herd."

Bloomberg reports that the risk of owning Northern Rock's debt rose from 15 basis points to 170 on Monday morning. The talk in the city is that Northern Rock will have to be taken over or broken up with possible buyers including HSBC Holdings, which itself is heavily involved in both U.S. and UK sub-prime mortgages; Lloyds TSB; the troubled Barclays; Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS, another troubled player. Lloyds TSB in fact came close to buying it last Friday but the deal fell apart because the Bank of England refused to offer any guarantees.

If the bank goes under not less than 6,500 jobs are at stake. The bank employees' trade union, Unite, is seeking emergency meetings with Northern Rock's management.