The day acid fog killed 12,000 people in London



70 years ago London was completely covered in en a thick fog. It was cold, more coal was burned than usual, and the wind dropped, the perfect combination for the city to go five days completely blind. An estimated 12,000 people died.

It all happened in 1952, when London was submerged in deep darkness. The indiscriminate burning of coal to warm the population from the cold and the lack of wind caused a dense fog known as ‘smog’ that paralyzed the capital and a radius of 32 kilometers.

“It was produced by a process of thermal inversion, that is, that cover that is the anticyclone compresses the pollution that photochemical smog. In addition, fog was generated due to the absence of storms and wind. That acid mist was formed“, explains Joanna Ivars, a meteorologist for La Sexta.

Those who lived through it remember that even inside houses it was impossible to read, not even next to a window. “It was a warm mist that enveloped everything.”

London collapsed. Without visibility, transportation was suspended, as well as cinema and plays. The ambulances could only circulate with the help of a policeman who lit them with torches. But the worst thing about this great fog never seen before in London is that it was deadly.

“I had never seen anything like this in a person his age, he was a young man in a state of complete collapse, having difficulty breathing,” says Horace Pile, a military medic.

People in the street covered themselves with handkerchiefs, masks or even with their hands. Still it is estimated that 12,000 Londoners died and more than 150,000 were hospitalized for respiratory problems.

At the time, the headlines they talked about mass murder. A turning point that caused the British Parliament to legislate to avoid another catastrophe like this.

Source: Lasexta

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