BETTMANN/GETTY
BETTMANN/GETTYPolicemen wearing masks
tried to control traffic in
the toxic, yellow smog.Already in 1661, environmentalist John Evelyn
described how sulphurous compounds made
buildings and statues crumble.
authors going all the way back to
Shakespeare, Dickens, and Conan Doyle used
the city’s foggy alleys as their settings.
EFFICIENT ANTI-COAL ACTS
The fog of December 1952 was the most
fatal ever, and it was soon nicknamed “Killer
Fog” and the "Great Smog” of London.
The only mitigating factor was that it
was brief. After only four days, the wind
direction changed, and on Thursday 9th
December, the smog lifted. But the death
toll was shocking. Londoners learned
that 4,000 people had died – mostly
children, elderly people, asthmatics, and
heavy smokers.
But 4,000 was just the official smog
death toll from the four days of the dog. Yet
the overall death rate forthe city remained
unnaturally high throughout 1953. Politicians
blamed a flu epidemic, but leading US
scientists have dismissed that explanation.
In fact, so many people died
of the smog in the
months which followed that the total death
toll actually topped 12,000.NEW DEADLY SMOG THREATENS
The consequence of the tragic events in
December 1952 was the introduction of a
series of acts in 1954, 1956, and 1968.
Private households had to use smoke-free
heat sources, and companies were ordered
to build taller chimneys.
The redevelopment of slums, urban
renewal, and the introduction of district
heating in the years that followed
contributed to doing away with the pollution.
An old problem had finally been solved.
But with increasing traffic, the air in
London and other cities is once again
becoming dangerous to breathe. When
European scientists held an air pollution
conference in 2002, celebrating the 50th
anniversary of the "Great Smog”, they
concluded that the air in London is now on its
way to becoming just as polluted. Not from
coal this time, but from car exhaust.The word SMOG is a
combination of “smoke”
and “fog”. The man who
invented the term was
a doctor by the name of
Henry Antoine Des Voeux,
who lived in London and
participated in a meeting
concerning air pollution
in 1905. The next day,
the word was used in the
Daily Graphic newspaper.