Air pollution can cause serious respiratory and cardiovascular problems through the emissions of toxic greenhouse gases emitted by industries and transportation. Such an extreme case occurs in great london fog produced in the year 1952. It is a period in which the polluting fog and accumulated due to atmospheric patterns that we must follow and caused the death of many people.
In this article we are going to tell you about all the characteristics, causes and consequences of the great fog in London.
Great London Fog
In general, Western European cities have breathed cleaner air in recent years. Updates on thick layer pollution almost always refer to cities in northern China, where photos of streets tens of meters away cannot be seen due to the spread of viral smog. The World Health Organization has repeatedly warned people about the risks of lung and cardiovascular disease living in these conditions. One of the most notorious cases was the great fog in London in 1952, which was recreated in the first season of the British series The Crown.
On December 5, the worst pollution disaster in history began in the British Isles. London was battered by a wave of cold winds for weeks, so to heat homes and offices, they did so with the heat from burning coal.
People were so used to "fog" that they weren't surprised that air pollution is choking cities in so much fog that it's more polluted than normal. In this case, the pollution was so great that it was impossible to see from one side of the street to the other; in some parts of east London, feet could not be seen, according to the BBC.
The ABC correspondent described this phenomenon in this way:
“These thick, almost solid fogs that eat the buses preceded by a man on foot with a resin ax in his hand; that turn off the sound; that force "cinemas" to announce to the public that "the visibility of the screen does not go beyond the fourth row"; that suspends, as happened last December 8, a performance of La Traviata due to sudden laryngitis of the tenor and the two sopranos and because the choirs could not see the maestro's baton; that also enters the houses and the lungs; that dirty the furniture and blacken the clothes and the saliva, that sticks to the glass, to the curtains and to the paintings, is the scourge of the cardiac, of the asthmatic and of those whose bronchial tubes are in misery and die. They die without assistance, sometimes, because the doctor cannot get through the "blanket" in time, which reduces the horizon to two yards.
Causes of the Great London Fog
In the morning, the fog began to change color due to the large amount of soot from the chimneys and the pollution from the cars, a situation that must be aggravated by the fact that electric trams have recently been replaced by buses that run on diesel. These factors converged in a cocktail that claimed thousands of lives in a matter of days.
For five days, thick fog from a windless cold front engulfed central London and a 20-mile radius; excess black smoke from burning poor quality fossil fuels it made the haze denser, richer in sulfur, and released sulfuric acid particles. A phenomenon called smog is produced, a mixture of fog and smoke that is very harmful to health.
The city became a bubble of air pollution: it was barely visible from meters away, ground and air traffic came to a standstill and people roamed the streets wearing face masks. Dantesque scenes were recorded, such as drivers driving their cars with their heads out of the windows, and were forced to abandon their vehicles in the middle of the road with no visibility.
Coal has been London's main fuel since the XNUMXth century. Gone are the days when firewood was used to heat palaces and private houses, as forests became scarce due to the construction of ships or houses, a precious commodity. The problem in the middle of the XNUMXth century was the economic problem that suffocated Great Britain, obliged to export its best quality coal, and other coal with a higher concentration of sulfur for its own consumption.
career and death
As time passed, the mist not only did not diminish, but it became thicker and thicker. Many concerts were canceled because smoke even entered the closed venue; including a performance of La Traviata at Sadler's Wells Theater it was canceled because the stage was not visible from the booths. Authorities also warned families not to send their children to school lest they get lost along the way.
The only thing that was not canceled is the traditional cross country race between the Oxford and Cambridge teams at Wimbledon. Of course, the long-distance runners had to wear masks to prevent their lungs from filling with toxic gases, and they were guided by the judges, who yelled at them: "This way, this way!" all time.
Logically, these hellish signs caused an increase in vandalism and crime: looting, robbery and theft of purses and bags, thanks to the shelter provided by darkness. But the most striking thing was the number of deaths recorded during the five days that the fog persisted, as recalled, and the resulting effects: it is estimated that 12.000 people died, especially among newborns and the elderly, from pulmonary infection of the upper respiratory tract. , hypoxia, or upper airway obstruction.
After five days in a hell of darkness and noxious smog, the great haze lifted on december 9, when a strong westerly wind carried the noxious clouds from London to the North Sea. Faced with an environmental catastrophe, the British Parliament was forced to take draconian legal measures to limit the use of industrial fossil fuels and reduce air pollution.
I hope that with this information you can learn more about the great fog in London and its consequences.