BIG LONDON EXPLOSION

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 133, 8 June 1942, Page 6

BIG LONDON EXPLOSION

UNDETECTED BOMB

LONDON, June 7

Twenty-eight persons are dead or missing and at least 100 were injured as a result of a tremendous explosion in Gurney Street, near the Elephant and Castle, demolishing a dozen houses and a block of : flats. The cause of the explosion is not known. Under dim flares more than 500 men, | women, and children worked through the night searching for victims who were still entombed under the wreckage. These included at least ten children;. The explosion made a crater 120 ft across and 20ft deep at the heart of what was once a three-storey building. Not one family in the whole of Gurney Street has escaped without loss. . Rescuers who worked all night to clear the roadway of debris dis- j covered the crushed bodies of six children. The blast of the explosion affected I about 200 . houses, while five threestorey buildings at one spot crumpled. (Rec. 1.45 p.m.) LONDON, June 7. A communique issued by the Ministry of Home Security states that it has [been ascertained that the Southwark I explosion was due to an unexploded jbomb which had not been detected. Casualties in the" explosion are now I officially estimated at 150. ' i Nineteen bodies have been recovered. It is believed that one woman lost all six of her children.