Hurricane LOW Q: A tragic trail of death and destruction
FROM OUR FILES: 16 JANUARY 1968
On 16 January 1968, a national tragedy dominated the front page of The Scotsman. Hurricane Low Q, as it would later be named, caused devastation across the Central Belt, leaving 19 dead (a figure that would rise to 21) and thousands without a place to live. Hundreds left hurt or left homeless Nineteen people died in Scotland yesterday when gales that roared at up to 124 miles an hour smashed their way across the country leaving a trail of shattered houses, crippled ships and wrecked cars. The screaming wind that battered at homes and gave most of Scotland a sleepless night was the worst in living memory.
And it left behind almost unbelievable chaos. At Greenock a 500ton dockside crane was uprooted and in Glasgow an official estimated that 70,000 municipal houses – half of the total – had been damaged. The list of those made homeless in the city reached 646 last night. Nine killed in Glasgow gale ‘blitz’ Nine people died in Glasgow where gales ripped through the city, causing havoc reminiscent of the Blitz. The city was being treated as a disaster area. Hundreds were made homeless, and last night emergency centres were opening to take them in.
Half of Glasgow Corporation’s houses were damaged to some extent, and at least a similar proket portion of private homes. Apart from a few isolated pockets, electricity supplies were reported to be “almost normal”. Two women and two children – one aged ten and the other aged three – died when a chimney-head weighing several tons fell from a threestorey tenement through the roof of an adjoining two-storey tenement in Dumbarton Road. The masonry tore through the front bedrooms of the three houses in the tenement, filling the basement and part of the ground floor with rubble. North Sea chase to rescue oil rig Four Hull tugs were last night trying to reach the BP oil rig Sea Quest as it drifted about three miles across the North Sea towards the Norwegian coast. A spokesman for BP said Sea Quest was still in “full sail” last night before a wind of 50 knots. Clydebank tie goes on tomorrow If it’s not one thing then it’s another. The field in Kilbowie Park became playable for the Scottish Cup second preliminary round replay between Clydebank and Queen of the South last night – and then came the storm. The wind made such a shambles of the park that the tie had to be postponed once again. It goes on, barring some other horrible eventuality, tomorrow night. Benelux bid to keep EEC door open The three Benelux countries today made a determined attempt to keep the door of the Common Mar- open to Britain and the three other applicants for membership – Denmark, Ireland and Norway – through regular consultations. The Benelux Foreign Ministers met here to decide on a joint policy in the face of France’s rejection last month of early negotiations with Britain.
In a six-point memorandum which will be submitted both to the other member states of the European Economic Community (West Germany, Italy and France) and the applicants, the Ministers said they were determined to maintain contacts with the applicants with a view to enlarging the community. New Spanish threat to Gibraltar Spain tonight warned that British claims to territorial waters within the Bay of Algeciras could lead to the imposition of restrictions directed against the inhabitants of Gibraltar, according to a British Embassy spokesman here.
He said an embassy official had been summoned to the Foreign Ministry and handed two Notes on the Gibraltar dispute. One of them renewed, for the first time in several months, allegations that British military aircraft based at Gibraltar had violated Spanish air space. It alleged that there had been 21 violations between October 20, 1967 and January 5. The second Note rejected Britain’s claim that the two nations had never formally traced out the limits of their territorial waters around the Rock.