Skip to footer

100-vehicle crash: Was fog to blame?

100-vehicle crash: The crash outside London that involved about 100 cars and trucks took place in a thick fog bank. Witnesses reported visibility around 20 yards.

|
Gareth Fuller/PA/AP
Emergency services (left) respond to the 100-vehicle crash on a bridge near London, England, Thursday Sept. 5, 2013. According to police at the scene around 100 vehicles were involved in the pile-up on a bridge in heavy fog.
  • By Reuters and Associated Press

| LONDON

Dozens of people were hurt, some seriously, when more than 100 cars were caught up in a huge pile-up on a bridge east of London during foggy conditions on Thursday morning.

Witnesses said there was thick fog at the Crossing, a road bridge which links the Isle of Sheppey in the mouth of the River Thames estuary to the mainland about 50 miles east of London. Witnesses put visibility at 20 yards.

Kent Fire & Rescue Service says hydraulic cutting equipment was needed to free six people injured in the pileup that took place on New Kingsferry Bridge in Sheppey, which is located in the southeast English county of Kent.

Kent Police said there were reports of at least eight serious injuries and 60 minor injuries. South East Coast Ambulance Service says that by midday it had transported 35 patients to six hospitals.

The accident began at about 7:15 a.m. and continued on for 10 minutes as cars and trucks slammed into each other. "All we could hear was screeching, cars thudding into each other, lorries crashing," driver Martin Stammers told the BBC.

Police said they were still investigating the cause of the accident.

(Writing by Michael Holden; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to 100-vehicle crash: Was fog to blame?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Latest-News-Wires/2013/0905/100-vehicle-crash-Was-fog-to-blame
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe