DEADLY FUMES

Southland Times, Issue 21262, 8 December 1930, Page 5

DEADLY FUMES

BELGIAN DISASTER MYSTERIOUS DEATHS ASPHYXIATION BY FOG? GAS ATTACKS RECALLED f (United Press Assn.—By Telegraph—r opyrlght.) Antwerp, December 5. Mysterious deaths occurring in the densely fog enwrapped Meuse Valley are attributed to asphyxiation from fog. Fourteen deaths have occurred at Engis in the past 24 hour;.-, following three days of fog. A health committee has been sent to investigate 34 deaths, apparently from the same cause, reported in the Liege district. Many people have been taken to hospital. A number of cattle and sheep have died, and farmers are driving their animals, into the kitchens to escape the fog. Asthma sufferers living near a zinc factory at Liege were asphyxiated last night. It is believed that fog interfered with the working of the volatilizer, causing the fumes to spread over the district.

A later message from Liege states that villagers are horror-stricken at the increasing deaths due to the invasion of an apparently poisonous gas. It is recalled that the Germans stored vast quantities of ammunition in the Liege district, and it is believed that vapours are arising therefrom. The health authorities are non-commital pending the result of post mortems. Many sufferers gasping in a last extremity were taken to hospital, the scenes recalling gas attacks in war time. The afflicted district is one of the healthiest in Belgium. Most of the victims are men and women in the prime of life. MOUNTING DEATH ROLL SIXTEEN MORE FATALITIES. A 'strange phenomenon. (Rec. 5.5 p.m.) Brussels, December 6. Sixteen more have died in the villages of Away and Ampsin. The death roll due to the mysterious fog is now 64. Eye-witnesses say the fog does not seem a mere winter freak, but lies about in streaks. One moment a person may be walking in ordinary daylight, then suddenly be up against a dense fog wall in which phantom-like shapes are discernible. Ou entering the fog breathing is difficult and the atmosphere is pungent. Claiming that the phenomenon is utterly unknown in the district, doctors are completely puzzled, especially by the deaths apparently due to congestion. All medical men in the neighbourhood are meeting tomorrow to investigate the mystery. Ono theory is that the air is impregnated by some chemical dust united with an unusual moisture forming a toxic gas. BURNING PAINS SUFFERING OF PATIENTS. (Rec. 5.5 p.m.) Brussels, December 6. Another death occurred to-day, but the mysterious mist of death which has hung over the countryside in pungent yellow patches for three days has apparently begun to lift. The reign of terror unequalled since the war is somewhat abating. Doctors are still very busy in the stricken districts attending hundreds of patients suffering from burning pains in the lungs and throat. Cattle were asphyxiated besides human beings and hundreds of carcasses arc lying in the fields. A sanitary commission has already begun inquiries. CAUSE OU DEATHS SPECULATION AMONG DOCTORS. HEART AND LUNGS AFFECTED. (Rec. 5.5 p.m.) London, December 6. The chairman of the Liege Health Commission states that an official inquiry, which has not yet concluded, shows that the Meuse Valley fatalities were solely due to the exceptional density of the fog. A doctor declares that gas from factories was not responsible. Other practitioners consider that the deaths were due to the natural result of a sudden chilling of the atmosphere combined with an unusually thick fog affecting people already suffering from respiratory diseases. Since either the heart or the lungs are involved in all cases, the autopsies will probably solve the problem. Forty are still dangerously ill, but the panic is subsiding with the disappearance of the fog from the death zone. No doctors are available for ordinary cases of illness, and chemists’ staffs have been unable to cope with the rush of work. Among the lay theories is that the yellowness of the fog is due to the same cause as the yellowness of the rain in Paris last week, namely, not dust from the Sahara but an aerial fungoid growth, possibly deleterious to life. A chemical analysis showed that yellow snow at St. Moritz in the middle ’nineties was due to the presence of minute fungoids. A number of cattle have just died from an unknown disease on the farm of Mr J. Hodgson Grosmont, A’orkshire. The disease is believed to be due to germs floating in the air. The farm has been isolated by fog since December 4. FOG BELIEVED RESPONSIBLE. (Rec. 5.5 p.m.) Lender), December 6. Professor J. B. S. Haldane, of Cambridge University', is of the opinion that the deaths in Belgium are apparently due to an epidemic of something resembling black death. He does not think they are due to war gas, as they occurred in different villages where floods were recently experienced, and possibly there is a, connection therewith. The Health Minister at, Brussels states that doctors believe the deaths are due to an intensely cold wet fog, not poison gas, and he has ordered a strict inquiry. DOCTORS PUZZLED POSSIBLE FORM OF INFLUENZA. (Rec. 5.5 p.m.) London, December 6. Doctors are mystified by the reports of the poisonous fog. An official of the Tropical Diseases’ Hospital, referring to Professor Haldane's suggestion of black death, expresses the opinion that he probably did not mean the mediaeval bubonic plague, but the devastating influenza epidemic of a few yeans ago which had been called black death owing to its calamitous effects in Britain and on the Continent. The deaths in the Meuse Valley might be a devastating form of influenza, which disease had many variations hitherto not fully understood. Local conditions may have created a new and hitherto unknown type of the disease.