Fire at King's Cross St. Pancras station

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Fire engines in front of King's Cross station

The fire at King's Cross St. Pancras Station was a major fire in King's Cross St. Pancras Underground Station in London on November 18, 1987, in which 31 people died. It is one of the worst accidents in the history of the London Underground .

Starting position

The underground station King's Cross St. Pancras of the Piccadilly Line was connected to the counter hall of King's Cross station above it by a long, triple, wooden escalator . A check two weeks before the fire had shown that the escalator was in poor condition, that small gaps had been created due to wear, covers were missing and dirt had accumulated under the system. Investigations after the fire showed remnants and traces of several previous fires, which had extinguished by themselves, next to a collection of matches .

Since the fire at Oxford Circus station on November 23, 1984, caused by a discarded cigarette , smoking has been banned in all London Underground stations.

the accident

The fire originated in the rush to 19:30. Due to the destruction caused by the fire, there are no definite traces of how the catastrophe came about. The most likely cause is that a smoker who left the station lit a cigarette on the escalator despite the smoking ban and carelessly threw the match on the floor. The still-burning match fell through a crack into the interior of the escalator and ignited a mixture of grease , dust , wood flour and paper . At first very small, the fire could not be fought with the existing fire extinguishers because it developed below the upper escalator and was not directly accessible. The on-site staff had not been instructed in the use of the escalator's own sprinkler system . At 7:39 p.m. it was decided to evacuate the station via the platforms and escalators of the other subway lines.

The fire brigade was alerted by employees of the subway and the police, the emergency alarm from the control center to the guard went out at 19:36. The first fire brigade units arrived about ten minutes after the fire broke out. The fire brigade wanted to fight the fire with respiratory protection and water. At 7:45 p.m., the long length of the inclined shaft through which the escalator ran led to a specific chimney effect , which was later referred to as the ditch effect and was only discovered on the occasion of this catastrophe . The fire spread suddenly, so that in a very short time the entire escalator was on fire and the fire shot into the counter hall above . Fireman Colin Townsley, who was one of the first to approach the scene of the fire through the counter, was also killed.

Up to 150 firefighters were busy fighting the fire for around six hours. The fire was not extinguished until 1:46 a.m. The passengers trapped by the fire in the subway station were evacuated using the subway trains that continued to travel .

consequences

Immediate consequences

31 people died, 100 were injured, 19 of them seriously. Over 60 people suffered from smoke inhalation . The dead were suffocated or burned to death, some beyond recognition.

Work-up

Model of the escalator from the Accident Investigation, on display at the London Transport Museum

Since the facilities of the combined station of the Metropolitan , Hammersmith & City and Circle Line were not affected, they could be put back into operation the morning after the disaster. The Victoria Line followed shortly thereafter. The counter hall, which serves several lines, was gradually reopened over a period of four weeks. The three parallel escalators of the Piccadilly Line to the counter hall had to be replaced, which lasted until February 27, 1989. Until then, access to the platforms of the Piccadilly Line was possible via the Victoria Line. Since the platforms of the Northern Line would only have been accessible via the facilities that were already heavily loaded by the traffic on the three lines, their trains ran through this station without stopping until the construction work was completed.

In order to fully clarify the cause of the fire , the escalator was rebuilt on a scale of 1: 3 and the fire re-enacted so that what was happening could be reconstructed. In the investigation report published in 1988, there is an indication that of 46 comparable incidents between 1955 and 1988 alone 32 were definitely due to smokers.

Wooden escalators and escalators with wooden parts were gradually replaced in the subway system by modern systems made of steel. Some of these wooden escalators were still in use for a long time, also because of their high number in the rather large underground network of London. The plant in Marylebone was not replaced until 2003. In 2013, a facility - albeit above ground - was listed for Greenford .

Identical escalator with wooden steps in Greenford

Fire protection has been strengthened, the fire alarm system, smoke detectors and sprinkler systems supplemented and renewed, and the training program for staff revised. The existing smoking ban was significantly tightened five days after the fire, extended to other systems (“including the escalators”) and parts of the system, and smokers who violated them were threatened with severe penalties. Six firefighters received awards including Colin Townsley, who in the disaster died, posthumously , the George Medal . There were commemorative events in memory of the dead at the site of the disaster on the tenth, 20th and 25th anniversary. There are memorial plaques at the train station and in the nearby St. Pancras Church.

One episode of the television series Seconds Before the Disaster and Medical Detectives was devoted to the disaster.

A last dead person could only be identified in 2004. It was a 73-year-old who was initially only registered as body 115 . In 1990 Nick Lowe dedicated the song “ Who Was That Man? ". There was no criminal trial after this accident because no criminally responsible person could be identified.

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Fire at King's Cross St. Pancras Station  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Photo of the escalator before the Fennell disaster: Investigation , panel 1
  2. ↑ Graphical representation in Fennell: Investigation , Table 27
  3. ^ Photo of the situation of the model experiment at Fennell: Investigation , plate 31
  4. ↑ Photos of the damaged facilities after the fire in: Fennell: Investigation , plates 3–10; King's Cross , in: The Huffington Post
  5. ↑ Photos of the course of the experiment in Fennell: Investigation , panel 1
  6. ^ Fennell: Investigation
  7. ↑ King's Cross . In: The Huffington Post
  8. ↑ Photo at Murtagh
  9. ^ How the final King's Cross fire victim was identified
  10. ↑ BBC: On this day

Coordinates: 51 ° 31 ′ 49 ″  N , 0 ° 7 ′ 27 ″  W.