File:Bethnal Green Underground Station - geograph.org.uk - 1296116.jpg

English: Bethnal Green Underground Station At first sight these steps plunging down into Bethnal Green underground station, at the corner of Roman Road and Cambridge Heath Road, appear unremarkable - no different to dozens of similar street entrances across the Underground network - yet they have a harrowing place in history.

It was here on the 3rd March 1943 that the worst civilian wartime disaster occurred in which 173 people were killed - and it was not directly the result of enemy action. At the time the station was unfinished, but was being used by the East End community as a shelter from air raids. On the fateful night the air raid sirens had sounded and a crowd duly made its way to the station; something then happened which made the crowd surge forward. It has never been definitively established what this was, although one theory has it that the Home Guard were trialling a new weapon in Victoria Park causing the crowd to think that bombs were already dropping. Unfortunately, a woman with a baby fell at the foot of these steps causing a man to trip over her - the crowd, however, kept on piling in crushing and suffocating those near the front. It did not help that the steps were slippery after rain, the entrance was only very dimly lit due to air raid regulations and the central handrail had not yet been installed.

The full details of what happened were not released until after the war, and today the site is marked only by the small plaque above the entrance. There is, however, a campaign for a larger memorial. More details are available here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A801668 .