New London Cities in Ruin

[Colony News Service]

Colony News Service - 826 AS, Sunday August 18, 0300 New London Time

New London Cities in Ruin

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Initial estimates of the damage to New London indicate 612,325 km² of the planet, primarily in the Westminster City Megalopolis, the North Delta Industrial Zone, and the Fishing Bank Economic Region were struck by Gallic 'Warwolf' Beams. Buckingham Palace, a fifth of the planet’s military installations, one hundred thirty-seven cities, thousands of towns, villages and burgs have been destroyed. Six hundred, ninety-seven million persons were known to live in those regions.

The weapons cast an extremely energetic beam over two kilometers in diameter, causing firestorms in their wake. Forests and parks were rendered to ash and charred remains, small villages continue to smolder, and thousands of blocks of urban structures are destroyed or severely damaged. Structures over mega block-size have remained standing, with slagged exterior rooms but still largely intact. The surface of lakes and shores stuck were vaporized, ejecting huge amounts of vapor into the atmosphere, which has increased the violence of the rainstorms we're currently experiencing, aiding local firefighting and but complicating rescue efforts.

Counts of survivors are still ongoing but initial reports indicate the death rate is nearly 43% of the populations of the three metropolises. Only underground facilities that didn't collapse and those extremely large structures capable of holding their mass after their exteriors were slagged were not completely ruined, though many people had success evading the linear paths of the beams. Unfortunately, many other such evacuations were caught in backtracking beams, part of what led to such high casualties.

Hospitals and emergency workers from around the planet are going to every extreme they can; millions of BAF personnel on the planet have been deployed into the areas to handle the more dangerous relief efforts, and a general draft has been issued under wartime powers to relocate labor to disaster recovery.

This is the Colony News Service.■

London News Correspondent, Aditi Nellore

Tags: Bretonia, Gallia, Gallic War, New London, Planet New London, Westminster City Megalopolis, North Delta Industrial Zone, Fishing Bank Economic Region