UNDEHeHOUND SMASH

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 115, 18 May 1938, Page 11

UNDEHeHOUND SMASH

LONDON TRAINS ' WORST ON RECORD /. 7 BEAD, 50 BADLY a INJURED CARRIAGE TELESCOPED (CnUed Press Association—By Electric Tito* graph—Copyright) (Received May 13, 9 a.m.) LONDON, May 17. Seven passengers were killed and #0 seriously injured in London's worst underground railway smash when two crowded trains collided 'between the Charing Cross and Temple stations. One train partly telescoped the rear carriage of the other, which was almost at a standstill. The side of the carriage irt the front train was ripped almost out; The tunnel was plunged into darkness after the crash. The passenger*, thrown into heaps, realised the seriousness of the smash-, on hearing tht groans and cries of injured people. They were afraid to move for fear of . trampling on those under the wreckage. , J Half an hour la'ter there was • blinding flash, accompanied by an explosion, under a. carriage. Many thought the train was on fire. Desperately smashing the windows, they scrambled out on to the track covered, in blood and staggered to Charing Cross platform through the black tunnel. Guards attempted to prevent an exodus until the order to move w» given ah hour after the crash, when v the first rescuers, carrying torches* arrived.

EXTRICATION OF THE INJURED. ; Charing Cross Station was converted into a vast casualty clearing station. Dozens of doctors, students, and nurses who were rushed from .the Westminster and Charing Cross Hospitals worked feverishly by the light of flares and torches to extricate the injured and ease the suffering of those who were seriously injured. Many of the passengers who were under the debris, and gthers lying on the track, were given injections of morphia. Cylinders of oxygen-were carried into the tunnel to revive the worst sufferers in the foul atmosphere. Forty firemen and railway officials assisted in the extrication of the injured . amid the deafening noise of drills which were used to cut a way through the wreckage., The police were faced with aa enormous task in controlling thousands of people in the vicinity of Charing Cross Station, where ambulances and fire, engines were four deep, and then was the greatest difficulty in removing the patients because of the crowds. LAST SUPERHUMAN EFFORT. The melancholy procession continued for two and a half hours, after which the last four trapped passengers were extricated as the result of superhuman efforts by rescuers, stripped to the waist, who were forced to jack up a carriage. Almost the entire resources of Charing Cross Hospital were placed at the disposal of the rescuers. Many patients were removed from their beds to accommodate the injured. - ' The guard of the front train received a broken leg, but the driver of the other train was not injured. Most of the victims were, occupants bf the front carriages of the oncoming train. A railway official who was among the first rescuers said that a short cirr cuit after the crash caused a fire, which was put out with carriage extinguishers and that the current was then cut off. The Minister of Transport, Mr. E. L. Burgin, and Lord Ashfleld, chairman of the London Passenger Transport Boaifd, visited the wreck. The London underground system has a remarkable safety record, and the chances of a collision as a result of a technical fault are estimated at lion to one.