GAS EXPLOSION

Hokitika Guardian, 21 January 1929, Page 5

GAS EXPLOSION

UNDER LONDON STREET. fUnited Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright). (Received this day at 8.30. a.m.) LONDON, Jan. 19. Yet another gas explosion has occurred beneath a London street. The windows of two shops in High Street Lee were blown out and passers-by had miraculous escapes. The flames spurted high above the pavement, and firemen were over an hour in subduing them. LONDONERS A LARMED. CTYfL ENGINEER’S WARNING. LONDON. Jan. 19. Londoners are alarmed by the peril of subterranean upheavals, of which there have .been fourteen in four months, causing two deaths and numerous injuries. The damage is estimated at half a million. The most serious disaster was at Bloomsbury on 20th December. Beneath the flimsy oru.sk oT London streets lie four thousand miles of gas mains, over nine thousand miles of water mains, and drains and tunnels. Alan A. C. Swinton, an eminent civil engineer, declared Loudon is a glaring example to newer cities of bow things should not be done. T do not wish to be an alarmist, but I am certain we have not yet experienced the last or most terrible upheaval. London suffers owing to its own long history. Companies have laid pipes and mains at different times as the city lias expanded. There are at least three gas mains under Piccadilly. Meanwhile the weight and speed . of traffic have increased and the pipes crack, joints loosen and leakages occur, which the most careful inspection cannot disclose until it is too late. The modern system of laying electric cables in bitumen should be condemned, as the wires fuse giving off highly explosive bitumenous gas. Tunnels are equally dangerous. There is a tunnel running the whole length ot the Embankment which few know was gas filled and nearly exploded in war time. All pipes and cables should ho laid in trenches under the pavement. The roadway should consist of large slabs or girders, thereby rendering the pij)cs easily accessible for repairs and inspection without disorganising traflic. It would naturally be enormously cosily to do it now. | t -