EFFECT OF "BLAST"

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 90, 12 October 1940, Page 11

EFFECT OF "BLAST"

NEW WORD USED

EXPERIMENTAL WORK

(British Official Wireless.)

(Received October 12, noon.) RUGBY, October 11., Bursting German bombs over Britain have forced the special use of the.worif "blast" into the language, * and'for: the last five weeks, particularly in .'London, the strangely unpredictable effects of "blast," noticeably on glass windoyfg in the districts affected, has been an absorbing topic of conversation^ Experimental work carried out in the last few weeks by the Civil Defence Research Committee,, with the aid ,._g£ delicate apparatus, has upset many preconceived beliefs. "Blast" is not so terribly destructive as is generally held, but that "is only because the effects are very local.1 It creates in the immediate vicinity of the explosion a wind, six times as violent as a tornado, credited in America, with an air speed of 500 miles an hour, but the wind, which is really gas froia. the bursting explosive, is" very shortlived. Beyond a distance of 30, feet from the burst of an ordinary bomb of 500 1b weight it. fades. away rapidly, and at 50ft is almost innocuous ..as far as the destructive effect on buildings i? concerned. Splinters from bursts : will still have a velocity; of 400Q:,feet a second at 50ft, nearly four times the speed of sound. Within a radius of 10 yards a blast exerts its full forte, and from "the point of view■.of • effect anywhere in that circle""cburits: as a direct' hit. "Blast" alone, however,,is not believed to be lethal,. except at? very close range.. -It might kill'through, shock to the heart or the lesions"of the lungs :owing to "the mouth .haying, been, closed, but not through-the merevelocity of the" gas..? One of Hue -most curious "blast" effects was .seen. wlten, a bomb struck, a block of .flatsin .London some days ago. It' cut the building' in two, with the result that people in the street .could see half of two bedrooms, with the beds undamaged hut. -nsHlnnslv near thfc edSte,. : ,