The Great Smog of London
MARION McMULLEN LOOKS AT THE WORST AIR POLLUTION EVENT IN BRITISH HISTORY
A KILLER cloud of smog caused devastation 70 years ago.
More than 4,000 people died in less than a week in London as the Great Smog of 1952 descended on the capital and left it paralysed.
It is reckoned a further 12,000 died in the weeks and months that followed, and those with breathing and heart problems, the young and the old were all particularly vulnerable with more than 150,000 people ending up in hospital.
The Met Office said: “The smokelike pollution was so toxic it was even reported to have choked cows to death in the fields.”
Public transport was hit and sports events cancelled. Cinemas and theatres also closed with newspapers warning up to £2m a day was being lost due to the problems caused by the extreme weather conditions.
Known as pea-soupers, the UK was no stranger to smog which hit when cold fog combined with air pollution.
Smog had been a serious problem in London from the 1800s and was a regular part of city life across the country, but no one was prepared for the deadly conditions that hit on December 5 and lasted for five days.
Ambulances were reduced to a snail’s pace, with drivers unable to see a metre in front of them, and both ambulance crews and firefighters had to walk in front of their vehicles to guide them safely through the smog-filled roads and streets.
Police officers also lit flares to guides buses safely back to depots, while pedestrians were forced to shuffle along the streets to avoid tripping.
The only transport still running at one point was the London Underground, which became severely overcrowded. More than 3,000 people queued for tickets at Stratford Tube station, East London, and conditions were so bad blind people helped lead sighted people home from the train stations.
The number of thefts and breakins rose sharply as criminals took advantage of the bad weather to
strike and a 60-year-old woman was found dead in a cabbage patch in North London after losing her way in the smog.
Freezing temperatures in November and December led to more households lighting coal fires to stay warm triggering a deadly cocktail.
The belching smoke combined with pollution from both local factories and some from the continent and everything became trapped in the atmosphere as the winds dropped and the smog built up.
Every day another 2,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide were released into the smoke, along with 140 tonnes of hydrochloric acid and enough sulphur to create 800 tonnes of sulphuric acid in the air.
Children were sent to school with wet hankies tied over their mouths in an attempt to protect them from breathing in the sooty particles floating in the air.
There was fog and ice on Hampstead Heath and some boys went
there to slide on the frozen ponds despite the wintry conditions, but the Met Office reported that the fog was so thick in the Isle of Dogs area that people could not even see their feet and newspapers said cattle at Smithfield had been asphyxiated by the smog.
A ferry transporting 300 passengers from Folkestone to Calais was also forced to anchor off the french coast for 15 hours because visibility was too poor to allow the vessel to dock safely.
The UK’s deadliest days of air pollution even featured in an episode of Netflix drama The Crown and the fog only started to clear on December 9 when winds began to pick up again and blew away the polluted air.
Conditions were so bad at the time that it led to the introduction of the Clean Air Act in 1956 which started legally enforcing smokeless zones in the capital – the first legislation of its kind in the world.
London introduced smog wardens in 1956 to help deal with the problem, but the capital was hit by smog again in 1962 which lasted for four days from December 4.
Visibility was reduced to a level that lighted objects could only be seen 50 feet away and it is thought the dense fog claimed up to 750 lives as it spread across the UK.
There were also reports of gangs of thugs taking advantage of the smog to carry out hold-ups.
Many people wore fog masks, but these also helped hide the identity of attackers. The deadly weather conditions eventually led to tougher regulations coming into force with amendments to the Clean Air Act in 1968.
Smog was also a problem in other major cities across the UK.
Manchester was hit by a bad smog in 1953 which made the day as dark as night, while visibility was down to just a few yards in Hull city centre in 1964 and police were also warning of icy roads as well.
The Great Smog of 1952 left thousands dead, but it also sparked change to improve air quality and make pea-soupers a thing of the past.