The seven-mile-long bore, linking France and Italy, carries up to 4,000 trucks a day, many times the level of traffic for which it was designed in the early 1960s. Some vehicles were still burning yesterday morning; others had been buried by rubble from the collapsed lining of the tunnel. On March 24, 1999, the fire began close to the center of the 7.2-mile tunnel. Protesters, citing environmental and safety concerns, opposed the tunnels reopening, especially its use by heavy trucks. It took a week for the tunnel to cool enough to recover their bodies, and those of the 36 others who had perished in the tunnel. Four years later, in 2003, I was living in France. A year after the fire, thousands of bikers gathered at the Italian portal to commemorate him. Why Is Mont Blanc One of the World's Deadliest Mountains? 20-trip package: 228.60; Valid for 2 years in addition to the validation month. The Italians were assisted by a French motorcycle security guard named Patrick Devouassoux, who happened to be on the Italian side when the fire broke out. Remy Chardon, former president of the French company operating the tunnel, was convicted and received a two-year suspended jail term; he was also fined approximately. They retreated into two fire refuges, small rooms with a dedicated air supply carved into the side of the tunnel every few hundred feet, and closed the fire doors. On that day, atmospheric conditions in the Alps created a fairly strong breeze in the tunnel. Around 11 a.m., a Volvo FH12 tractor-trailer, registered in Belgium, stopped to pay the toll. The Italian company responsible for operating the tunnel, SITMB, paid 13.5 million ($17.5 million US) to a fund for the families of the victims. Then on the occasion of its 20th anniversary, this year, I was commissioned to write a feature for The New York Times, looking back on the fire as the worlds most closely examined road disaster. I had drawn on the contemporaneous newspaper accounts in Val dAosta and Chamonix for my story. According to the National Geographic documentary programme Seconds from Disaster, the fire and smoke appeared at around 10:49. When built, it was the worlds longest road tunnel, linking the French and Italian highway systems and shortening truck routes between Italys industrial north and other parts of Europe. The resulting fire burned for 52 hours and ended 41 lives. Pierlucio Tinazzi Pierlucio Tinazzi ( Italian pronunciation: [pjrluto tinattsi]; 27 December 1962 - 24 March 1999) was an Italian security guard who died while trying to rescue victims of the 1999 Mont Blanc tunnel fire. It was immediately obvious, as I began to read, that Spadino couldnt have saved anyone. Some had been upgraded in the thirty-four years since construction of the Mont Blanc Tunnel to survive for four hours. Spadino might have seen something, or heard something from one of the drivers exiting the tunnel, that made him suspect that a truck was in trouble. [1] A commemorative plaque at the Italian entrance honours his sacrifice. By. 99 Tunnel. As the trucks cargo burned, it produced dense, toxic smoke that billowed back towards France. It was some time before investigators released a final, accurate account of the disaster at the Mont Blanc Tunnel: The biker, who was known by his nickname, Spadino, an Italian riff on his skinny frame, had not saved anyone. The association writes standards, not laws; its up to the local authorities to adopt them. This is exactly what happened almost at the mid- point of the tunnel - underneath western Europe's highest mountain, three and a half miles from the open air - on Wednesday morning. 120 MONT BLANC TUNNEL FIRE Premium High Res Photos For the first time, I began to worry. A control room on the French side of the Mont Blanc Tunnel. Save almost 80%: 10.65 instead of 48.80 one way. I spent a week seeking out his family, friends, and coworkers and imploring them to talk to me. He was a mild-mannered introvert who loved gardening; occasionally he distributed a bumper crop of vegetables to other workers at the tunnel. Most of the victims had almost certainly suffocated before they burned. The Mont Blanc Tunnel Fire | A Short Documentary | Fascinating Horror Fascinating Horror 1.02M subscribers Subscribe 511K views 7 months ago #Documentary #TrueStories #History "On the 24th. The Mont Blanc Tunnel is a highway tunnel between France and Italy, under the Mont Blanc mountain in the Alps. I tell people, This is like a building for cars.. That was a small mercy. The lessons learnt are summarised in Table 3.5 of this report. FIREFIGHTER HISTORY 3/24 - Firefighter Close Calls The first, Seconds from Disaster Tunnel Inferno (aired 2004), was a reconstruction of the events leading up to and during the disaster and the conclusions of the investigation that followed. The driver escaped unhurt; the deluge system kept the fire under control until a Miami-Dade fire crew arrived. The director of the tunnel company, Remi Chardon, said earlier that at least 17 and up to 30 people were feared to have died. The following week, something new and bad is on again and the wheel restarts its circle. Gilbert Degrave, the driver of the truck, received a four-month suspended sentence. Sure enough, in December 2017, a car erupted into flames in the tunnel. It held that title. The resulting fire and smoke generated from it led to the deaths of 39 people behind the lorry, including one firefighter, and is considered the worst road tunnel fire ever. However, most studies of fire toxicity have been regarding lethality, for . The damage to the tunnel was so severe that it took almost three . There were 29 deaths of people trapped inside of vehicles, and nine more died trying to escape on foot. This channel is for documentaries for educational use. He had been presented with medals and buried with honors long before I arrived in Val dAosta. The tunnel is equipped with the following safety facilities: Every 100 m portable fire extinguishers Every 300 m garages It was more than five days before the tunnel cooled sufficiently to start repairs. Having died trying to save another man, Tinazzi was lauded as a hero, buried with honors, and posthumously awarded Italy's Medaglia d'Oro al Valore Civile. Between 10:53 and 10:57, the smoke had already covered half a kilometre of the French side. The tragic fire in the Mont Blanc tunnel of 24 March 1999, with 39 victims, and the subsequent fires in the Tauern (May 1999) and in the Gotthard (October 2001 . The narrow tunnel turned into a furnace. Some victims escaped to the fire . what happens if you snitch on the cartelmont blanc tunnel fire victims names. Only vehicles past the fire on the French side of the tunnel were trapped, while cars on the Italian side of the fire were mostly unaffected. The likelihood of escalation of incidents into major events is low, however the consequences of such incidents can be severe in terms of victims, damage to the structure and impact on the transport economy. Fdration Internationale de Motocyclisme, "I wrote a story that became a legend. Mont Blanc Tunnel Map - Tunnel - France - Mapcarta [4] Select from premium Mont Blanc Tunnel of the highest quality. It is one of the major trans-alpine routes, and up to a third of Italy's freight passed through it, with 766,000 heavy goods vehicles using the tunnel in 1998. The agreement between France and Italy on building a tunnel was signed in 1949. Of course now, Im embarrassed that it took me 14 years to correct the record. PDF Overview on the traffic situation in European tunnels - Ditzingen The safe havens were designed to protect motorists from a fire for only two hours. Mont-Blanc tunnel fire: what lessons 24 years later? In Seattle, the recently opened S.R. An international survey of major tunnel fires can be found in the technical report 05.16B Systems and equipment for fire and smoke control in road tunnels, Table 2.1 "Serious fires accidents in road tunnels". The Mont Blanc Tunnel opened to traffic in 1965. [5] In 1962, the French and Italian drilling teams met on 4 August. People think of tunnels as a hole through the ground, he said, but thats not the case anymore.

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