The Maryport Advertiser May 5, 1882 Channel Tunnel Safety

Channel Tunnel Safety

The Maryport Advertiser - May 5, 1882

CHANNEL TUNNEL SAFETY. ________    The people who insist that the Channel Tunnel may be constructed with perfect safety, because an apparatus may easily be devised by means of which it may be destroyed in a few moments in case of a need, ought to read the account of the proceedings in the Ring Theatre tri 1 at Vienna.    They will learn from the evidence of the lessee that there was an admirable system organised in the place for guarding against the dangers of fire; “that every official employed was carefully selected and trained; and every one had his key in order to open the escape doors.”    Everybody is painfully familiar with this story. The system was admirable, but it depended too exclusively upon the presence of mind of the officials in a moment of emergency. When the emergency came the officials were unprepared for it; their doors and their keys were forgotten altogether, and a horrible catastrophe followed.    Can Sir Edward WATKIN or anybody else guarantee us against a similar risk in connection with the Channel Tunnel? Can they make it quite certain, in short, that when the moment of trial comes all the elaborate paraphernalia of machinery for destroying the tunnel will not be found to be worse than useless, simply because somebody in a hurry and confusion of the moment has forgotten to do something which is essential to it’s successful working?

 

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