LONDON UNDER ICE.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5220, 23 December 1927, Page 3

LONDON UNDER ICE.

TWO THOUSAND INJURED.

TRAFFIC IN CONFUSION.

LONDON, December 21.

It is estimated th£t 2000 persons

were injured and treated in the hos-

pitals as the result of the most re-

markable weather freak experienced

in London within memory.

'Sit Snow began to fall at midnight in twe frozen city, when a warm current of air was wafted from the west, making a difference of 12 degrees between the upper and lower temperatures. It turned the snow into rain. The ground, however, was so frozen that the rain was immediately turned into ice.

Thus, by morning, London was converted into a gigantic skating rink, with a quarter of an inch of glazed frost on the ground. Walking was impossible, and people fell about everywhere like nine-pins, or yvere to be seen clinging to railings and unable to move. Many tied newspapers or rags around their boots to prevent them slipping. Thousands, however, did not - venture from their .homes. The traffic was in indescribable chaos. Motor vehicles slid dangerously and turned completely round, while horses were quite unable to proceed. The trains were thrown into entire confustipn, as their wheels would not grip the frozen rails. Thousands of the workers who usually travel by train were stranded. They streamed out from the stations in search of motor-buses, which, however, were standing helplessly in the streets. Scores of vehicles which did brave, the impossible conditions were overturned.' A thousand buses were unable to leave the garages. Similar scenes were witnessed in

Paris where 400 persons were sent to

hospital some with seriously frac- • tured limbs, and four or five with fatal injuries. Midnight revellers at Montmartre found thefr taxicabs unable to move. Hundreds of vehicles w:ere backed against the kerbs to prevsent their sliding downhill.