LONDON PERIL

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XIX, Issue 29, 21 January 1929, Page 5

LONDON PERIL

ALARMING UNDERGROUND UPHEAVALS FOURTEEN IN FOUR MONTHS. DANGERS FROM MAINS, DRAINS AND TUNNELS. [United Press Association—By CableCopyright.) [United Service.! (Received 21,. 8.55 a.m.) London, Jan. 20. Londoners are alarmed by the peril of subterranean upheavals, of which there have been fourteen in four months, causing two deaths and numerous injuries. The damage Is estimated at £500,000. The most serious disaster was that at Bloomsbury on December 20. Beneath the flimsy crust of the London streets lie 4,000 miles of gas mains, over 9,000 miles of water mains, drains and tunnels. GRAVE DANGERS. Mr. Alan A. C. Swinton, an eminent civil engineer declared that London is a glaring example to the newer cities of how things should not be done. “I do not wish to be an alarmist but I am certain that we have not experienced the last or the most terrible upheaval London suffers owing to its own long history. Companies have laid pipes and mains at different times as the city has expanded. “There are at least three gas mains under Piccadilly, Meanwhile the weight and speed of the traffic have increased and the pipes crack at the joints and loosen, and leakages occur which the most careful inspection cannot disclose until it is too late.

DEFECTS OF MODERN METHODS

“The modern system of laying electric cables in bitumen should be condemned, the wires of the fuse giving off highly explosive, bituinenous gas. The Embankment—and few know this—was gas filled and nearly exploded in war time, “All pipes and cables should be laid in trenches under the pavement. The roadwav should consist of large slabs on girders, thereby rendering the pipes easily accessible for repairs and inspection without disorganising traffic. It would naturally be enormously costly to do it now.”