Some 4,000 people died of respiratory ailments in those five days, and perhaps an additional 8,000 in the months that followed. ''It was only when the registrar general published the mortality figures three weeks later that everybody realized that there had, in fact, been a major disaster.'' Bates, who at the time had just started work at St. ''There was no sense of drama or emergency,'' said Dr. Indoor concerts were canceled because the audiences could not see the stage.Īnd then the smog lifted and the problems were over. Public transportation nearly ground to a halt, and at night the visibility was so poor that some parts of London became unnavigable. A thick haze hovered over the streets, penetrating homes and offices. Over the next five days, a city already famous for its smog experienced the worst air pollution it had ever seen. But instead of rising into the atmosphere and dispersing, the smoke stayed close to the ground, trapped by the cold air above. Trying to keep warm, Londoners piled extra coal into their fireplaces, sending plumes of black, sooty smoke into the air that mixed with clouds of exhaust from factories and coal-burning power plants. 2000 Apr 108(4):283–287.In early December 1952, a great mass of cold air moved off the English Channel, draped itself over London like an icy comforter and then simply stayed put. Associations between mortality and air pollution in central Europe. Peters A, Skorkovsky J, Kotesovec F, Brynda J, Spix C, Wichmann HE, Heinrich J.Mortality in the London fog incident, 1952. December fog in London and the Emergency Bed Service. Pope CA., 3rd Epidemiology of fine particulate air pollution and human health: biologic mechanisms and who's at risk? Environ Health Perspect.Air pollution and daily mortality: a review and meta analysis. Air pollution and the London fog of December, 1952. The Meuse Valley fog of 1930: an air pollution disaster. This may not be the complete list of references from this article. The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (2.1M). Ambient pollution in many regions poses serious risks to public health. Pollution levels during the London smog were 5-19 times above current regulatory standards and guidelines and approximate current levels in some rapidly developing regions. We estimate about 12,000 excess deaths occurred from December 1952 through February 1953 because of acute and persisting effects of the 1952 London smog. Claims that the smog only elevated health risks during and immediately following the peak fog 5-9 December 1952 and that an influenza epidemic accounted fully for persisting mortality increases in the first 2 months of 1953 are rejected. Mortality rates for the smog episode from December 1952 to February 1953 were 50-300% higher than the previous year. Public health insurance claims, hospital admission rates for cardiac and respiratory disease, pneumonia cases, mortality records, influenza reports, temperature, and air pollutant concentrations are analyzed for December-February 1952-1953 and compared with those for the previous year or years. This article develops and assesses novel indicators of respiratory and other morbidity and mortality following London's lethal smog in the winter of 1952.
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