The 1948 Donora smog was a historic
air inversion that resulted in a wall of
smog that killed 20 people and sickened 7,000 more in
Donora, Pennsylvania, a
mill town on the
Monongahela River, 24 miles (39 km) southeast of
Pittsburgh. The event is commemorated by the
Donora Smog Museum.
Sixty years later, the incident was described by
The New York Times as "one of the worst
air pollution disasters in the nation's history".
[2]Even 10 years after the incident, mortality rates in Donora were significantly higher than those in other communities nearby.
[3]
...The
sulfuric acid,
nitrogen dioxide,
fluorine, and other poisonous gases that usually dispersed into the atmosphere were caught in the inversion and accumulated until rain ended the weather pattern.
[2]