SEEKING SAFETY

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21224, 21 September 1940, Page 16

SEEKING SAFETY

USE OF TUBE STATIONS GREAT PROBLEM IN LONDON DANGER TO TRANSPORT SYSTEM (United Prest Am.— Elec. Tel. Copyright) LONDON, Sept. 19 The morning newspapers in London draw attention to the growing danger to the transport system as a result of the increasing use of underground stations as air raid shelters. • The Daily Telegraph says that congestion at the stations is becoming serious. The news that the authorities are not forbidding the use of underground platforms has caused a large increase in the nightly migration, and passengers are forced to struggle through lanes of recumbent forms.

Hundreds of people are taking up their positions at about five o’clock in the evening, while some “refugees” enter the stations as early as three o’clock.

The Daily Express also appeals for the reduced use of underground stations as shelters in order to enable workers to travel. This is regarded as a hundredfold more important now that the siege is on. “The people’s safety will mean nothing if the city’s work is allowed to slow down or falter,” the paper adds. “One solution would be to disperse children, the aged and the infirm and also everybody whose labour is not essential. In the Poorer Districts “The Government also faces the problem of providing shelters in the poorer districts. Many women and children spend the nights in roofed trenches which are uncomfortable and insanitary and which were constructed merely for protection against short raids. It is feared that winter nights in these shelters will result in influenza and pneumonia. “The Home Secretary. Sir John Anderson, is requisitioning idle basement cellars on a large scale, thereby providing shelter for many thousands. Congestion in the underground stations is liable to get out of hand, and for this reason it is hoped that basements will provide room for all who are denied the use of the underground railways.”