14 ноября 1987 года задымление на станции «Кинг-Кросс» лондонского метро спровоцировало панику. Люди, почувствовав запах дыма, бросились к выходу, в результате чего возникла давка, в которой 37 человек погибли и более 60 получили увечья. Причиной пожара явилась непотушенная спичка брошенная пассажиром и попавшая в машинное отделение под эскалатором.

On Nov. 18, 1987, a flash fire engulfed an old wooden escalator at the King's Cross underground station. Thirty one people perished in that disaster including a firefighter - Colin Townsley, station officer from the Soho Fire Station in central London. Two other firefighters were trapped on the station platform - at the bottom of the escalator - but survived.

``The thick hanging smell of the fire lingered in the tube station passageways for months afterwards,'' commuter Andrew Pryde told the BBC.

A discarded match apparently ignited grease and rubbish in a machine room beneath escalator serving the Picadilly Line, even though smoking was banned on the London Underground after a fire at the Oxford Circus station a few years earlier.

``I remember the machine rooms under the escalators throughout the Underground system before the fire used to be disgusting places covered in oil and grime,'' electrician Karl Hoskin told the BBC. ``But within a very short space of time after the fire they became so clean you could have almost eaten your dinner from the floor!''

Townsley and his crew from Soho were first due at King's Cross that night followed by the crew at the Clerkenwell station. Firefighters from the nearby Euston fire station were at another alarm at University College Hospital. Soon thereafter, the Soho firefighters radioed for assistance - “Make Pumps Four Persons Reported” and Euston responded.

The fire escalated to a ``30 pump'' incident - equivalent to a ``general alarm'' in the U.S.

Investigation report about fire (*.pdf 6.8 Mb)