LONDON - THE collapse of US investment giant Lehman Brothers sent shockwaves through London's financial district Monday, as the firm's staff cleared their desks and rivals voiced fears for their own jobs.

Some employees of the 158-year-old Wall Street institution wondered aloud whether their salaries would be paid at the end of the month, after Lehman - which has 4,000 employees in London - declared itself bankrupt.

'Everyone is clearing their desk, a lot of people are very sad,' said 26-year-old Duo Ai, a bonds researcher at Lehman, adding: 'Some people are very angry. I can totally understand that.'

'It is terrible. Death. It's like a massive earthquake,' added Ms Kirsty McCluskey, 32, who worked on Lehman's London trading floor. 'It's final. Everybody is just finishing up.'

Frenchman Edouard d'Archimbaud, 24, arrived for his first day of work but did not even make it as far as his desk.

'I arrived but before I could even get to my desk I was told everybody is fired,' he said. 'I do not know what I will do now. I've taken out a six-month lease on a flat and I don't know how I will pay for it.'

Many other Lehman staffers remained tight-lipped as they arrived for work at the firm's Canary Wharf offices in London's Docklands hours after the bankruptcy was confirmed at its New York headquarters.

Workers for rival firms did little to disguise their concern.

'If you look over there,' said Mr Brian McKeever, a broker at Citigroup's Smith Barney arm, gesturing to a stock market ticker, 'every arrow's pointing downwards'.

'We're in a situation where our division's been shrinking but we can't go anywhere because there are no jobs in the market.'

Mr McKeever added, while standing outside Lehman's offices with a colleague, that he was 'certainly not feeling confident'.

'I don't have that secure feeling. I haven't had that feeling in six or seven months,' he said, referring to the international financial crisis that has claimed US investment bank Bear Stearns and British mortgage lender Northern Rock in the past year.

Two analysts at Citigroup, meanwhile, pointedly added the words 'hopefully' and 'fingers-crossed' after insisting they were 'relatively confident' that their jobs were 'pretty safe'.

Earlier in the day - described by one London daily as 'Black Monday' - Lehman Brothers said in a statement it intended to file for bankruptcy 'in order to protect its assets and maximise value'.

The bankruptcy announcement, which drove global stock markets sharply lower, came after last-ditch efforts in New York to find a buyer for the troubled investment bank collapsed on Sunday.

At the bank's offices in London, several analyst-level employees said it had not been confirmed whether staff would be paid for September.

An analyst who had been at Lehman Brothers for a year, who declined to be identified, said the atmosphere in the bank's offices was 'pretty grim.' 'It's scary. I kind of knew I should expect this when I got into the industry ... I need to get into a more stable job.'

'It was a bit out of nowhere - no one thought it would come to this,' he said, referring to the frantic weekend of negotiations to arrange a rescue that ultimately failed.

Another analyst who had been at the bank for three months said that inside the building, 'everybody's packing up - either way, you are out.' 'I'm trying to be optimistic, I'm trying to be positive, but it's a difficult time.'

Asked about his own future, the analyst, who declined to be identified, said: 'From a personal perspective, I probably would think about whether this is the right industry for me.' -- AFP