The Great Smog of 1952

In early December in 1952, a severe cold spell hit London, England. The citizens tried to keep warm by doing what they always had, which was burning coal. Then on December 5, a layer of dense fog hung eerily over the city. London is a city that is known for its fogginess, so the townspeople didn’t really think anything of it. But between the coal smoke from homes and London’s usual emissions, the dense fog turned into rolling, thick layer of smog.

This smog nearly shut down the city for four days. Visibility across the city became extremely poor, to the point where you couldn’t see your own feet if you looked down at them. This obviously put any means of transportation on hold. People didn’t even want to go out of their house. Many places were shut down because the smog had seeped through. Measurements said that the concentration of particulate matter in the air had reached 56 times its normal level! To top it all off, the sulphur dioxide reacted to the particles in the foggy droplets, thus creating acid rain.

It wasn't until after the fog lifted on December 9 that the fatality of the smog was discovered. In four short days, the smog had killed about 12,000 people. That’s 4,000 more people to die than usual for that time of year. Even weeks and months after the smog had lifted, people were still dying from it. Most of those killed were people who had pre-existing respiratory problems, babies, and the elderly. Because it was so deadly, the London smog disaster became known as The Great Smog of 1952.

The death toll was obviously shocking to the citizens, and they knew something had to be done. So in 1956 and 1968, parliament passed two Clean Air Acts, which began the process of eliminating the burning of coal in both people's homes and in factories, to try to avoid this disaster from ever happening again.