10 pictures of the Great smog in London

5 December 1952 was one of the worst environmental events in the history of England. "The great smog" (eng. Great Smog) tightly enveloped London in four days and dissipated only to 9 December. The incident has become a real catastrophe, which killed 12 thousand people and injured more than 100 thousand which was considered the starting point of the modern environmental (ecological) movement.

In early December 1952, a cold fog descended upon London. Because of the extremely low temperature, the citizens began to use coal for heating in a larger amount than usual. Around this same time, the process of replacement of public transport (trams) on a bus with a diesel engine.

Locked heavier layer of cold air, the combustion products in the air in a matter of days made up of extraordinary concentration.

The fog was so thick that prevented the movement of cars. Was cancelled shows, stopped showing films, because it could easily penetrate inside the premises. Sometimes the audience simply did not see the stage or the screen because of the dense veil. By Friday evening, the fog had thickened so much that the range of visibility was reduced to five meters. Some of the townspeople came out of the house, could not find his way back; confused impenetrable smog, they could go on just holding on to the hand of the walls of nearby houses.

Many people wore special masks made of gauze and some closed normal scarves and scarves, but neither that, nor another did not help to breathe.

Initially, the reaction of the townspeople was calm because London fog is not uncommon. In the weeks that followed, however, the statistical data collected by the health services of the city, revealed the deadly nature of the disaster, the number of deaths among infants, the elderly and those suffering from respiratory diseases reached four thousand people. About eight thousand people died in the following weeks and months.

Nasty impenetrable fog was one of the distinguishing features of London for centuries. About the mists of the English capital Dickens wrote, who called it "part of the personality of London," wrote Conan Doyle in the short stories about Sherlock Holmes and Robert Stevenson's "Strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde". The fog was a wealth of England, as the architecture of old London or the Royal family.

But the word "smog" (poisonous mix of smoke and exhaust gases with fog) had only forty-five years before the events described and was introduced in 1905 by Dr. Henry de In.

Saturday, December 6, 1952, in the theatre, Sadler's wells "La Traviata" was interrupted in the middle due to the fact that the audience suddenly began to cough. Thick, acrid fog slowly filled the room, and see the scene from the peanut gallery has become virtually impossible.

In the days of the "great smog" of London hospitals quickly filled with the victims with respiratory diseases, began to grow mortality in the city. First, these facts have not received the publicity, but after a few days it turned out that the undertaker over the coffins, and the merchants flowers — funeral wreaths. The ambulance did not have time to get sick — the whole city got one big traffic jam, unable to budge. People have died from suffocation.