Stairway To Heaven
The Bethnal Green Disaster of 1943 is still remembered by quite a few, to quote:
On 3 March 1943 a crowd of people entered Bethnal Green tube station which was used at the time as an air-raid shelter. After the searchlights went on and an anti-aircraft battery a few hundred yards away in Victoria Park launched a salvo of a new type of anti-aircraft rockets the crowd surged forward. Someone tripped on the stairs causing many others to fall. 300 people were crushed into the stairwell within a few seconds, 173 of them died and over 90 were injured. The worst civilian disaster of the 2nd World War.
Soon, there will be a memorial to replace these ad hoc tributes.
posted by Ham at 00:02 --
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Comments on "Stairway To Heaven"
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Cathy West said ... (21:56) :
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Jude said ... (00:42) :
post a commentSometimes, ad hoc is more religious than memorial! It our WWI children generation go into their 70"s, this ad hoc becomes more real and important to posterity's young...many of whom have no real idea what it was like to be bombed incessantly!
They made a movie about this which aired on US TV decades ago. I think of the incident pretty much every time I descend into a crowded stairwell, all because of that film.