PALL OF SMOKE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 243, 11 September 1940, Page 7

PALL OF SMOKE

MANTLE OVER LONDON. DISTRESSING SCENES. (United Press Association—Copyright.) (Rec. 11 a.m.) LONDON, Sept. 11 A mountainous black cloud of smoke is hanging over London this morning. Police have guarded the entrances of all the affected areas pending the fixing of barriers. The streets are filled with dust and smoke. Ambulances and demolition wagons are still racing along the roads. Rescuers oyer a wide area are still searching in buildings for victims. Most distressing scenes may be seen, not only in the East End, but in areas far to the westward. Warehouses in the vicinity of St. Paul’s Cathedral rjre ablaze. The Church of St. Mary-le-Bow, of Bowbells fame, after a long period of anxiety, has been pronounced out of danger. Eiremen fought fires in the vicinity of St. Paul’s for eight hours and falling bombs and crashing debris. The fires raged in several localities around the Cathedral, which is undamaged. The wind blew flames from the nearest fire away from the building. Rescuers in many parts of London worked in extricating people from collapsed bouses with bombers overhead. Two bombs falling in a London square demolished one house and damaged another. HOSPITALS’ ORDEAL. A member of the air raid precautions services said: “It is not the fires and damaged buildings which upset us, but the sight of little children -with gaping wounds. Others have been killed outright—people screaming amid the flames, women frantically trying .to save their babies, and men searching for their families.” A bomb in a Central London district demolished a women’s hostel, causing the surrounding area to be evacuated. Bombs fell in two hospitals in Central London, shattering the roof of a children’s hospital and causing a fire on the top floor. A second bomb iiit a maternity hospital. A nurses’ home was also struck, but there were no casualties at any of the three places. The. maternity hospital contained 30 mothers and 20 babies. The patients were evacuated within a quarter., of an hour. A bomb which hit the maternity hospital seriously damaged the ground floor of a nearby public-house. A broken water main threatened the lives of eight people taking refuge in cellars, but screams from the trapped people attracted the attention of rescuer s.

Several were killed when a high-ex-plosive bomb fell in North-East London, seven houses crashing into a huge pile of debris.