These chilling images were taken during London’s Great Smog of ’52. For four days the city of London was blanketed by a poisonous smog that reduced visibility to a few yards and led to an estimated 12,000 fatalities. From NPR:
Roads were littered with abandoned cars. Midday concerts were cancelled due to total darkness. Archivists at the British Museum found smog lurking in the book stacks. Cattle in the city’s Smithfield market were killed and thrown away before they could be slaughtered and sold — their lungs were black.
On the second day of the smog, Saturday, Dec. 6, 500 people died in London. When the ambulances stopped running, thousands of gasping Londoners walked through the smog to the city’s hospitals.
The lips of the dying were blue. Heavy smoking and chronic exposure to pollution had already weakened the lungs of those who fell ill during the smog. Particulates and acids in the killer brew finished the job by triggering massive inflammations. In essence, the dead had suffocated.
Some 900 more people died on Tuesday, Dec. 9, 1952. Then the wind swept in unexpectedly. The killer fog vanished as quickly as it had arrived.
It sounds like the plot of a post-apocalyptic film, but the event opened the public’s eyes to the deadly effects of pollution and led to significant developments in environmental research, government regulation, and public awareness of the relationship between air quality and health.
Nice eerie photos.
Very cool….I like the top one best. Looks like some dirty photoshop layering.
…but it’s not Photoshop, it’s a smog that killed thousands. I think you chose the word ‘chilling’ very appropriately, Jon.
Insightful post.
i had never heard of this event.. my first thought while i started reading was that some attack took place or some sort of industrial mishap etc..
but no, it was just accumulation, weather, and i suppose a lack of foresight of how extreme it could get given the right ingredients.
chilling indeed
The first photo borders on the line of a realism painting and an actual photo.
Definitely aware it isn’t Photoshop.
Just amazed at how something so real and raw can be depicted in a photograph, let alone the historical context.
Crazy. I’ve never heard of this either.
The 4th one has a spooky sense of abandonment with the car door left open and the child (woman?) running for safety indoors
London 1952, this might be Beijing in 2012.
BTW @JAG: That car in the 4th photo is a hearse, waiting for a coffin to be loaded in.
London 1952, this might be Beijing in 2012.
BTW @JAG: That car in the 4th photo is a hearse, waiting for a coffin to be loaded in.
London 1952, this might be Beijing in 2012
BTW, @JAG, the car in photo 4 is a hearse, waiting for a coffin to be loaded in.
Sorry for the triple post, my browser went nuts
looks like moscow 2010 smog