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The Mont Blanc Tunnel is a Road Tunnel in the Alps between France and Italy , near the Mont Blanc mountain. The two most famous cities near the tunnel are Chamonix , Haute-Savoie , France and Courmayeur , the Aosta Valley , Italy . Begun in 1957 and completed in 1965 , the 11.6 kilometer (7.25 mile) long, 8.6 meter (28.2 ft) wide Mont Blanc Tunnel runs beneath the mountain between these two cities. It is one of the major trans-Alpine transport routes particularly for Italy which relies on the tunnel for shipping as much as one-third of its freight to northern Europe. THE 1999 FIRE On March 24 , 1999 39 people died when a Belgian transport truck carrying Flour and Margarine caught fire in the tunnel. After several miles, the driver realized something was wrong as cars coming in the opposite direction flashed their headlights at him; a glance in his mirrors showed white smoke coming out from under his cab. This was not yet a dire emergency; there had been 16 other truck fires in the tunnel over the previous 35 years, always extinguished on the spot by the drivers. At 10:53 AM CET, 57-year-old Gilbert Degreaves stopped in the middle of the tunnel to attempt to fight the fire. He was forced back by flames erupting from his cab. At 10:55 AM, the tunnel employees triggered the fire alarm and stopped any further traffic from entering. At this point the tunnel was populated by at least 10 cars/vans and 18 trucks that had entered from the French side. A few vehicles from the Italian side passed the Volvo truck without stopping. Some of the cars from the French side managed to turn around in the narrow 2-lane tunnel to retreat back to France, but negotiating the road in the dense smoke that had rapidly filled the tunnel quickly made this impossible. The larger trucks didn't have the space to turn around, and reversing out wasn't an option. Most drivers rolled up their windows and waited for rescue. The ventilation system in the tunnel drove toxic smoke back down the tunnel faster than anyone could run to safety. Within minutes, two fire trucks from Chamonix responded. The fire melted the wiring and plunged the tunnel into darkness; in the smoke and with the abandoned, wrecked vehicles blocking their path, the large fire-trucks were unable to proceed. The fire crews instead abandoned their vehicles and took refuge in two of the emergency fire cubicles (fire-door sealed small rooms set into the walls every 500 meters or so). As they huddled behind the fire doors, they could hear the burning fuel roll down the road surface, causing tires to pop and gas tanks to explode. They were rescued five hours later by a third fire crew that responded and reached them via a ventilation duct; of the the 15 firefighters that had been trapped, 14 were in serious condition and one (their commanding officer) died in the hospital. Some victims escaped to the fire cubicles. The original fire doors on the cubicles were rated to survive for two hours. Some had been upgraded in the 34 years since the tunnel was built to survive for four hours. The fire burned for 56 hours and reached temperatures of 1,000 °C (1,832°F) mainly because of the margarine load in the trailer, equivalent to a 6,000 gallon oil tanker, spread to other tractor trailors nearby which also carried combustable loads. Slowly, everything became part of the inferno. It trapped around 40 vehicles in dense and poisonous smoke (containing Carbon Monoxide and Cyanide ). Due to the gradient of the road, the tunnel acted like a Chimney sucking cold air in on one side with the intense heat and smoke leaving on the other. Adding to that effect, fresh air was pumped in through the Italian side, forcing the smoke to escape through the French side. The fire was so hot that the rock that forms the interior of the mountain was permanently changed in chemical form. Only cars on the upper side of the tunnel were trapped, while cars on the other side of the fire were mostly unaffected. 27 people died in their vehicles. 10 died trying to escape on foot. Of the initial 50 people trapped by the fire, only 1 dozen survived. It would be over five days before the tunnel cooled sufficiently for anyone to go back in. Heroism The 12 survivors all said the same thing: "That guy on the motorcycle saved my life". It was Pierlucio Tinazzi , a security guard employed by the Italian side. His job was to ride up and down the tunnel to see that everything was running smoothly. He was on the French side when Emergency Services had given up. He used some Breathing Equipment and rode into the tunnel on his BMW K75 . He was in radio contact with the Italian side for over an hour before succumbing to the intense heat. His BMW melted into the pavement after he dragged an unconcious truck driver to behind a fire door. There is a commemorative plaque of him at the Italian entrance. Aftermath The tunnel underwent major changes in the three years it remained closed after the fire. Renovations include computerised detection equipment, extra security bays, a parallel escape shaft, and a fire station in the middle complete with double cabbed fire trucks. Manslaughter trial In Grenoble , France , 16 people and companies were tried on January 31 , 2005 for Manslaughter . Defendants in the trial included:
The cause of the fire is disputed. Different accounts report it to be a cigarette stub carelessly thrown on to the truck, a mechanical fault, or poor maintenance of the truck's engine. The closest smoke detector was out of order and French emergency services do not use the same radio frequency as those inside the tunnel. The Italian company responsible for operating the tunnel, SITMB, paid €13.5 million ($17.5 million) to a fund for the families of the victims. Édouard Balladur , former president of the French company operating the tunnel (from 1968 to 1980), then later Prime Minister Of France , was heard as a witness. He was asked about the security measures that he took or failed to take. Balladur claimed that a lot was prevented by the division of the tunnel into two sections operated by two companies (one in France, the other in Italy) which did not take a concerted approach. On July 27, 2005, thirteen defendants were found guilty, and handed sentences ranging from fines to suspended prison sentences, to 6 months in jail.
The charges against Volvo were dropped. SOURCES |
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