{"id":327904,"date":"2025-12-04T20:20:19","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T20:20:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/327904\/"},"modified":"2025-12-04T20:20:19","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T20:20:19","slug":"today-in-history-december-5-twelve-thousand-deaths-blamed-on-five-day-smog-catastrophe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/327904\/","title":{"rendered":"Today in History – December 5: Twelve thousand deaths blamed on five-day smog catastrophe"},"content":{"rendered":"

Visibility in London was reduced to near-zero on December 5, 1952, as a heavy smog settled over the city.<\/p>\n

The British capital was well-known for its smog events, known as “pea soupers”.<\/p>\n

But the so-called Great Smog was something else altogether.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/The smog made it near impossible to move around the city. (Getty)<\/p>\n

As temperatures dropped, Londoners upped their heating, which at the time was largely low-grade coal fires.<\/p>\n

London was also powered by coal-fired power stations in the city itself.<\/p>\n

When an anti-cyclone settled over the city, the sheer volume of pollutants did not disperse in the atmosphere or blow away.<\/p>\n

Instead a smog reduced visibility to just a few metres, effectively shutting the city down.<\/p>\n

And the moist air transformed the sulphur dioxide in the coal fumes into sulfuric acid.<\/p>\n

Buses were halted and there was a surge in car accidents.<\/p>\n

As the smog seeped inside buildings, movies and concerts had to be cancelled, as well as outdoor sports events.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/London’s link-men light a fog flame to show the location of Whitehall in the Great Smog. (Keystone)<\/p>\n

Even walking outside in the middle of the day was risky, with pedestrians needing to feel for a kerb with their feet.<\/p>\n

An estimated 4000 people died in the smog, which lasted for five days.<\/p>\n

But subsequent revisions estimated the total number of deaths as a result of the smog was 12,000.<\/p>\n

In either case, death rates were higher than at any time since the Spanish Flu epidemic, including World War II.<\/p>\n

\"ThousandsThe Great Smog caused an estimated 12,000 deaths. (AP)<\/p>\n

Most of those deaths came from lung infections and other breathing issues. Most of the dead were elderly or very young.<\/p>\n

It was later determined that infants or unborn children who were in the Great Smog had lower intelligence than others who didn’t.<\/p>\n

The British Government was reticent about blaming pollution for the Great Smog, but eventually measures were taken to prevent it happening again.<\/p>\n

Coal fires were steadily replaced by gas, and power stations were moved out of the city.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Visibility in London was reduced to near-zero on December 5, 1952, as a heavy smog settled over the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327905,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-327904","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}