After World War II, London began its reconstruction. Mercilessly bombed by the Nazis, the English capital was one of the great martyrs of the conflict. But a few years later he would suffer a new episode of terror.
It was called the great smog For five days the city was suffocated by a fog that left thousands of dead and hundreds of thousands of people sick with respiratory problems.
England has lived since the 19th century fighting against environmental problems, from the stinking smell of the Thames to the greenish fog that emanated from factories and heating stoves, as he well remembers. Erin Blakemore para National Geographic.
The nation, birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, was the first major victim of the Climate change at the time.
Coal as a driver of the Great London Smog
The use of coal to heat homes it grew larger with the passage of time, without any regulation. And the worse the winter, the more the black sedimentary rock was used for protection.
But the winter of 1952 was terrible, and the conditions of post-war Londoners were mixed, with hunger and malnutrition, with the cold and excess smog from coal.
According to the chronicles, since December 5 of that year the effects began to be felt. By thermal inversion, the low temperatures condensed water vapor in the air and turned it into fog.
The emission of smoke from the chimneys increased, with sulfur dioxide trapped in the atmosphere.
Death in the capital of England
The chaos broke out in the streets, because no one could see where he was walking, and respiratory problems were increasing.
Three thousand people died in five days, according to the records of the ruling British Conservative government. But according to research from 2012 there were more than 12 thousand deaths, in addition to tremendous effects on the health of those who survived.
The official portal of the London government provides hard data: “During the Great Smog period, daily average concentrations of sulfur dioxide were in the range of 3,000 to 4,000 micrograms per cubic meter for three consecutive days. The current WHO air quality guideline is 40 micrograms per cubic meter.”
As highlights the Encyclopedia Britannica, the authorities, “slow to act at first”, finally passed the Clean Air Act. They did so as recently as 1956, establishing smoke-free areas in London and restricting coal burning in homes and industrial furnaces.
