LONDON A VOLCANO.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 21 January 1929, Page 5

LONDON A VOLCANO.

CONSTANT DANGER OF GAS LEAKS. EXPERT EXPECTS MORE SERIOUS TROUBLE THAN IN THE PAST. ADVOCATES NEW SYSTEM OF PAVING AND TRENCHING.

(Bv Telegraph-Press Assn.-Copyright.) V * /(Sun Cable). (Received This Day, 8.55 a.m.) v LONDON, Jan. 19. Londoners are alarmed by the peril of subterranean upheavals, of which there have been in four months; causing two deaths and numerous injuries, while the damage is estimated at half a million. The most serious disaster was at High Holborn on. December 20th. , Beneath the flimsy crust of London streets He 4000 miles of gas mams, over 9000 miles of -water mains and drains and tunnels. . Mr Alan A. C. Swinton, an eminent civil engineer, declares that London is a glaring example to newer cities of how things should not be done, “I do not wish to be an alarmist,” said Mr Swinton, “but I am certain that we have not yet experienced the last or 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 traffic have increased and pipes crack, joints loosen and leakages occur which the most careful inspection cannot disclose until it is too late. “The modern system of laying electric cables in bitumen should be condemned, the wired fuse giving off a highly explosive bitumcnous gas. Tunnels are equally dangerous. There is a tunnel running the whole length of the Embankment which few know was gasfllled and nearly exploded in war-time. “ All pipes and cables should bo laid in trenches pavement. The roadwav should consist of large slabs or girders, thereby rendering pipes easily accessible for repairs and inspection without disorganising traffic. It would naturally be enormously costly to do now. ’ ’

Mr. Alan Swintou, F.R.S., is a distinguished Engineer and a scientist, having been a President of the K(Hitgen Society and a manager of the Royal Institution. He is a director ot several engineering, electrical supply and transport companies, and has been associated - with the development ot the Parsons turbine and other inventions.’

A Sun cable received at 1 a.m. stated that a gas explosion occurred beneath a London Street, and the windows of two shops in High Street, Lee, were blown out and , passers-by had miraculous escapes. The flames spurted high above the pavement, and the firemen weie over an hour in subduing therm p N