COLOGNE’S PROBLEM

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20283, 18 April 1934, Page 1

COLOGNE’S PROBLEM

City in Terror of Poison Gas. CONCRETE COFFIN FULL. COLOGNE, April 12. The Wahner Moor, the city’s largest open space, has been ordered to be closed for thirty years because the city fathers, like a man who does not know how safely to dispose of his used razor blades, are unable to destroy a large store of poison gas. An effort was made to burn it. out it affected vegetation, and the gas was then buried in sandy soil three feet beneath a munition factory on the Wahner Moor. When the factory was dismantled it was feared that the gas would escape and pollute Cologne’s subsoil water. The authorities considered sinking the gas in the sea, but it was decided that it would be too dangerous to transport it along the Rhine to the coast. They again tried burning and neutralisation. Eventually a 20ft pit was dug and floored with a foot of clay. On this was 'aid six inches of concrete to support a coffin ” made of reinforced concrete two feet thick, the walls of which were scraped and given three coats of tar in order to seal the pores. The coffin measured 15ft by 15ft by Bft. The gas was then dug up. Some of the containers were found to be broken, so the infected earth 'was also placed in the coffin and the concrete lid was sealed. Then, by a scrutiny of old documents, it was discovered that the reburied gas was less than the original quantity and the city fathers, in despair, closed the moor.