A pillar of fire sets the alarm clock in the village (colour litho)

A pillar of fire sets the alarm for the village. A terrible explosion makes the inhabitants of Grignols, a town in the Gironde department, jump out of bed in the middle of the night. They run to the windows, they are frozen by terror. From the bowels of the earth, right in the center of the town, a column of fire rises to the sky and in a deafening crackle it sways from one side and the other, sowing fires. General escape-flight, with dramatic rescues of various people stuck in the flames; only an old sick pensioner cannot get out of the burning house in time and dies asphyxiated by smoke. Firemen arrive from Bordeaux but very little they can do. Only a few blackened walls remain in the country. And why is that pillar of fire? Lightning had broken, and set fire, the underground gas pipeline. Illustration for Courier Sunday, 15 June 1958.