The London Shelter Disaster
Mr. Morrison has promised to probe to the utmost the causes of the appalling London shelter disaster in which 178 people were killed and 6o injured. His decision that the inquiry (which opened on Thursday under Mr. L. R. Dunne) shall not be public must be accepted with regret. The catastrophe was started by the fall of one woman carrying a child near the bottom of a flight of stairs ; others tripping over her prostrate body made a barrier against which the crowd behind packed helplessly. The disaster would
certainly have been lessened if those behind could have seen what was in front of them and had not pressed on. The points to which inquiry must obviously be directed are, whether there should not have been an adequate screened light to guide persons descendi the stairs, whether the stairway should not have had rails in the centre and at the sides by which persons could steady themselves, whether there should have been more entrances, and whether there should not have been wardens on the spot to direct the crowd and attend to the doors (which on this occasion were not closed). These it are only some of the relevant points which must be fully probed. Whatever conclusions may be arrived at, the lessons must be applied in other shelters all over the country. Mr. Morrison has rightly deprecated any tendency to look for scapegoats until it is establish who or what was responsible. But evidently it was, or should have been, somebody's business to ensure that in the construction or maintenance of the shelters no safety precautions were omitted. Inquiry should not be restricted to the causes of this particular disaster, but should consider other possible defects in shelters which might make their use dangerous.
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