I thought about the tunnel story on and off, usually around the anniversary of the fire. It had been open nearly 35 years without a single fatal incident until the morning of March 24, 1999. The toxic effects of the fire product are important in the second and third phase. Corrections? By 11:11, more Italian firefighters had come to tackle the fire. [7] The closest smoke detector was out of order, and French emergency services did not use the same radio frequency as those inside the tunnel. An honor guard filled the tiny cemetery where he was buried. In fact, there had been 16 other truck fires in the tunnel over the previous 35 years, always extinguished on the spot by the drivers. A MANSLAUGHTER investigation has been launched by French authorities into the horrific blaze in the Mont Blanc tunnel in which 35 died. They warned in a report that the ventilation system would be hopelessly inadequate if a serious accident happened far from a tunnel mouth. An emblem for human courage in the face of adversity, and an inspiration for motorcyclists like me, that swept the world in its small way. If I Googled Pierlucio Tinazzi with my language preference set to English, the top results linked to my story or follow-up pieces by others. Investigations following the horrific tunnel fire that claimed the lives of 39 travellers and closed the vital France-Italy Alpine route to all traffic in March 1999, revealed that safety aspects of the Mont Blanc highway tunnel fell far short of adequate standards for the busy 11.4km single-tube, two-lane, bi-directional road tunnel. A detailed description of the Mont Blanc, Tauern and St. Gotthard fires including the original configuration of the tunnels, and a step-by-step guide to the incident, fire progression, and the behaviour of operators, emergency services and users, as well as the lessons to be drawn can be foundinthe technical report 05.16B Systems and equipment for fire and smoke control in road tunnels. Within 10 minutes most of the victims were dead, 300m of the tunnel was ablaze, trapping 36 vehicles including 25 lorries. On 24th March 1999 a transport truck caught fire while driving through the Mont Blanc tunnel between Italy and France. In fact, hed been offered a job in the tunnel control room, but had declined because he preferred to ride. When it was realized that the cubicles were offering little protection from the smoke, they began searching for the doors that led to the ventilation duct. Over the next 35 years of uneventful service, those superlatives were taken for granted. At the time of its construction, it was three times longer than any existing highway tunnel.[2]. Protesters, citing environmental and safety concerns, opposed the tunnels reopening, especially its use by heavy trucks. Over the years, there have been a few occasions when complete strangers thanked me for writing, Searching for Spadino. That always made my day. The devastating fire led many countries to issue revised safety standards for tunnel design and engineering, including sprinkler systems, emergency response plans, and two-way ventilation systems that can quickly withdraw suffocating smoke. Seven other people, including the tunnel's Italian security chief, received suspended terms and fines. Broadcast on March 20 at 11:15 p.m. on France 3. Some of the cars from the French side managed to turn around in the narrow two-lane tunnel to retreat back to France, but navigating the road in the dense smoke that had rapidly filled the tunnel quickly made this impossible. but more importantly the blaze made operators and designers of other tunnels re-examine fire risks. The fire resulted in million of dollars in damage, thirty-nine deaths, and a three-year closure of the tunnel. [5] This was preceded by the signing of a national charter for the tunnel construction, ratified by the parliaments of France (1957) and Italy (1954). 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. The US magazine Rider ran an abridged version the next year. 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. In the Mont Blanc tunnel fire in 1999, for example, over 20 lorries were destroyed, and several people lost their lives. The Mont-Blanc Tunnel, promoter of safety at international level Mont Blanc and its valleys Territory and open air A cultural crossroads Partnerships History Unitary tunnel management Corporate structure Women and men Important projects and works Details (suppliers, calls for bids, tenders and contracts) Traffic statistics Financial data News Balladur claimed that the catastrophe could be attributed to the fact the tunnel had been divided into two sections operated by two companies (one in France, the other in Italy), which failed to coordinate the situation. In those countries, post-trial stories acknowledged that the legend was exaggerated. Three companies were fined up to US$180,000 each. In 2010, the average traffic volume was 4,945 vehicles per day, or around 1.80 million vehicles per year. The International Motorcycle Federation, the world governing body of motorcycle sport, presented its highest award to his family. But Id taken pride in this story for so long. I contacted Paolo Sormani, an experienced Italian motorcycle writer, and asked him to help with that accounting. Paolo wrote back, rather brusquely I thought, saying that he had no interest in reopening the Spadino story. The tunnel underwent major changes in the three years it remained closed after the fire. The idea of building a tunnel underneath the Mont Blanc to avoid the need for lengthy circumnavigation dates back to the nineteenth century during the heyday of the railway. Searching for Spadino. That always made my day. Berthier talked to me about the first Memorial Spadino biker gathering. This can be achieved by the provision of safe design criteria for new tunnels, as well as effective management and possible upgrading of in-service tunnels, and through improved information and better communications with tunnel users. It passes almost directly under Europes highest peak. The ventilation system in the tunnel drove toxic smoke back down the tunnel faster than anyone could run to safety. The passageway is one of the major trans-Alpine transport routes, particularly for Italy, which relies on this tunnel for transporting as much as one-third of its freight to northern Europe. A detailed description of the Mont Blanc, Tauern and St. Gotthard fires including the original configuration of the tunnels, and a step-by-step guide to the incident, fire progression, and the behaviour of operators, emergency services and users, as well as the lessons to be drawn can be found in the technical report 05.16B Systems and Outside, in the tunnel, Tinazzis motorcycle melted into the roadbed. Technical report 05.05B Fire and smoke control in road tunnels. Many difficulties, including an avalanche that swept the Italian camp in which three workers were killed and more than 30 injured, were overcome during its construction, and, when the tunnel opened in 1965, it was the longest vehicular tunnel in the world. [8], On the morning of 24 March 1999, the engine of a Belgian transport truck carrying volatile freight caught fire in the tunnel. When it was opened it was the worlds longest and deepest road tunnel. The fire burned for 50 hours. THE 2001 GOTTHARD ROAD TUNNEL FIRE With its single tube of 17 km in length, roughly 7 million vehicles per year and an average of 4,000 trucks each working day, the Gotthard road tunnel is undoubtedly overstressed. Some vehicles were still burning yesterday morning; others had been buried by rubble from the collapsed lining of the tunnel. The next morning, digging deeper, I uncovered a 97-page, minute-by-minute account of the fire, produced by Le Service Rgional de Police Judiciaire de Lyon. ChamonixCourmayeur11.68.6 Northeast of Mont Blanc's summit, the tunnel is about 15km (10mi) southwest of the tripoint with Switzerland, near Mont Dolent. The police deposed hundreds of witnesses and experts, studied all the security logs and video, and analyzed thousands of photos and other pieces of forensic evidence. All the deceased were on the French side, and were ultimately reduced to bones and ash by the intense heat. It connects the highway systems of France and Italy, and cuts an hour off transport times between Italys industrial north and the rich markets beyond the Alps. 40 deaths He was Italian, but as it happened, he entered the tunnel from the French side. The Mont Blanc Tunnel was originally managed by the two building companies. The initial journey through the tunnel was routine. Tracy Connor. Then on the occasion of its 20th anniversary, this year, I was commissioned to write a feature for, , looking back on the fire as the worlds most closely examined road disaster. Students are requested to identify problems which were management-caused, either prior to or during the fire situation. Unlike long- distance road and rail tunnels built more recently, it has just one bore and two lanes, one each for northbound and southbound traffic. I looked again at the citation for the FIM medal. 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 fire trapped around 40 vehicles in dense and poisonous smoke containing carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide. It gives me comfort that my portrait of Spadino was accurate, even if my account of what he did during the fire was not. The passageway is not horizontal, but in a slightly inverted "V", which assists ventilation. Nothing in the official record suggests his motivation. While the legend of the biker was exaggerated, the horror of the fire there 20 years ago and its impact on tunnel safety cannot be overstated.CreditSamuel Zeller for The New York Times. Road traffic grew steadily until 1994, even with the opening of the Frjus tunnel. The opening was successful, with an axis variation of less than 13 centimetres (5 inches). Pierlucio Tinazzi was employed as a security guard to patrol the tunnel by motorcycle to ensure a steady flow of traffic. Following a fire in 1999 in which 39 people died, which showed how lack of coordination could hamper the safety of the tunnel, all the operations are managed by a single entity: MBT-EEIG, controlled by both ATMB and SITMB together, through a 50-50 shares distribution. [5], Due to political turmoil and World War I and World War II, the project did not start until 1959, when excavations on the tunnel officially began. ), Antoine Chandellier is a French journalist who has reported on the Haute Savoie region for decades. I suppose I would sympathize with a local reporter who on deadline, in the chaos of those first days conflated events from both ends of the tunnel. I wonder if he ever realized his mistake, or tried to correct the record. It measures 11.6 kilometers (7.2miles) in length, two-thirds of which lies in France. The next morning, digging deeper, I uncovered a 97-page, minute-by-minute account of the fire, produced by, Le Service Rgional de Police Judiciaire de Lyon. At least 35 people died in the 1,800-degree inferno that erupted in the Mont Blanc tunnel linking France and Italy . When the Mont Blanc tunnel was built in 1965, the transalpine crossing was considered . Its not clear whether he suspected trouble or thought he was making a routine trip back to the Italian portal. Mont Blanc Tunnel Tolls on the Italian side from 1 January 2022 (22% VAT included), Mont Blanc Tunnel Tolls on the French side from 1 January 2022 (20% VAT included), Agreement between France and Italy and start of construction by 1959, Learn how and when to remove this template message, "World's longest auto tunnel to pierce the Alps", "A French-Italian Operator - Autoroutes et Tunnel du Mont Blanc", "Our work on the Mont Blanc Tunnel - ATMB", "The Fire of 1999 - Autoroutes et Tunnel du Mont Blanc", "The security features of the Mont Blanc Tunnel | DW | 17 July 2015", "A5 Mont Blanc-Aosta Motorway - Courmayeur- Morgex Section Lot No 2 - Salini Impregilo", "Mont Blanc Tunnel Toll Prices - Get from France to Italy", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mont_Blanc_Tunnel&oldid=1149625412, Workforce: five engineers and 350 workmen worked an estimated grand total of 4.6 million man-hours to complete the project, Explosives: 711 tonnes (700 long tons; 784 short tons) of explosives were used to blast 555,000m, Other facts: 771,240 bolts, 6,900 drill rods, and 300 tonnes (300 long tons; 330 short tons) of iron were used to support the, This page was last edited on 13 April 2023, at 11:48. The Volvo trundled in, on its way to Italy. I was not alone in making Spadino a hero. 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. Twenty years ago, Pierlucio "Spadino" Tinazzi was a security guard who patrolled the Mont Blanc tunnel in the Alps by motorcycle, in order to ensure a steady flow of traffic. by red crosses) or closing of the tunnel (by traffic lights), are often neglected if not enforced by additional means (eg. Twenty years ago Sunday, a fire deep inside an Alpine tunnel killed 39 people and turned a motorcycle-riding security guard who worked there into a hero. He appeared to be in his 50s at the time of the fire, so its not certain hes still alive. A group of French firefighters took refuge in one of the new safety zones but one of them died of a heart attack. A few minutes after Mr. Tinazzi rode in, two trucks from the Chamonix Fire Department arrived carrying 14 firefighters. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. They were blocked at garage 22 and had also abandoned their vehicles, and searched for trapped groups of firefighters who had taken refuge in the fire cubicles. [1] A commemorative plaque at the Italian entrance honours his sacrifice. However, the idea did not receive widespread attention until 1907, when Francesco Farinet, a Member of Parliament of the Aosta Valley, advocated constructing of the tunnel. Otherwise it was conventionally driven from two headings, the Italian and French crews beginning work in 1958 and 1959, respectively, and meeting in August 1962. The tunnel crossing is subject to a toll; the toll differs from Italy to France because of their different VAT rates. Mont Blanc Tunnel traffic. 35 DEAD IN EUROPE TUNNEL FIRE. Four years later, in 2003, I was living in France. a more efficient organisation of operational and emergency services (harmonised, safer and more efficient emergency procedures, specifically for cross-border operation). It was immediately obvious, as I began to read, that Spadino couldnt have saved anyone. To this day, no one can say with certainty why the rig caught fire. Members of a direct response crew in the firefighter hangar on the French side. Paolo Sormani, the motorcycle writer who had initially been reticent, seemed to have a change of heart a few days later, when he wrote back in Italian-accented English to explain. However, burning fuel flowed down the road surface, causing tyres and fuel tanks to explode and sending deadly shrapnel in the air, thus spreading fire to other vehicles. Halifax explosion, also called Halifax explosion of 1917 or the Great Halifax Explosion, devastating explosion on December 6, 1917, that occurred when a munitions ship blew up in the harbour of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. The Mont Blanc tunnel, opened in 1965, underwent a major three-year renovation after the fire, with computerised detection equipment, extra security bays and a parallel escape shaft. After analyzing the records, he noticed something unusual. [5] In 1962, the French and Italian drilling teams met on 4 August. A reporter asked for 20 years of lottery winner data. The narrow tunnel turned into a furnace. The system proved utterly incapable of pumping in cold air or removing the thick fumes from the burning margarine and flour and the loads of the other blazing trucks, including, it is believed, a tanker containing chlorine. misbehaviour of car drivers seems to be the most common cause of tunnel incidents and may also cause problems in incident management (like impeding access of emergency services to the site of incident), in case of a fire drivers sometimes try to pass by the vehicle on fire to continue their ride, despite the potential danger caused by fire and smoke, traffic management measures such as closing of a lane (eg. what happens if you snitch on the cartel. Start your Independent Premium subscription today. I had drawn on the contemporaneous newspaper accounts in Val dAosta and Chamonix for my story. The second, Into the Flames Fire Underground (aired 2006), revisited the circumstances and showed how new technology in the form of a new type of fire extinguisher could have reduced the scale of the disaster and enabled the fire service to reach and remain in the vicinity to fight the fire. [6], Three years later the tunnel was inaugurated by the French president, Charles de Gaulle, and the Italian President, Giuseppe Saragat on 16 July 1965. Structure: Tunnel: . Jean-Marc, who until that point in our conversation had easily recalled facts and anecdotes, told me he couldnt remember the details. Without other possibilities, they abandoned their vehicles and took refuge in two of the emergency fire cubicles (fire-door sealed small rooms set into the walls every 600 metres). He appeared to be trying to catch up to the truck that sparked the catastrophe, witnesses said. Technical report 05.16B Systems and equipment for fire and smoke control in road tunnels. The police deposed hundreds of witnesses and experts, studied all the security logs and video, and analyzed thousands of photos and other pieces of forensic evidence. French highway network. Appendix 5 of the technical report 2016 R35 Experience with Significant Incidents in Road Tunnels provides a survey of 32 randomly selected real tunnel incidents, including a short description as well as important conclusions and improvements that could be identified for specific types of incidents or tunnel systems. Extract of sample "Mont Blanc Tunnel Fire". Melted wiring had eliminated any possible light sources in the tunnel; in the smoke and with abandoned and wrecked vehicles blocking their path, both fire engines were unable to proceed, and were blocked at garage 17, 1200 metres from the burning truck. Their bodies were found several hundred metres from the site of the crash, just beyond the halfway point between the French and Italian tunnel mouths. On 24 March 1999, a transport truck caught fire while driving through the Mont Blanc Tunnel between France and Italy. The Mont Blanc tunnel fire March 1999 killed 39 persons, of which most died within 15 min due to intoxication. It was an ordinary truck with ordinary cargo: nine tons of margarine and 12 tons of flour. Chapter 3 "Lessons learned from recent fires". All of the firefighters were rescued five hours later by a third fire crew that responded and reached them via a ventilation duct; of the 15 firefighters who had been trapped, 14 were in serious condition and one (their commanding officer) later died in the hospital. In the aftermath, major changes were made to the tunnel to improve its safety. On 3/24/1999 the Mont Blanc Tunnel fire occurred when a truck carrying 12 tons of flour and 9 tons of margarine entered the French side of the 7.2-mile tunnel connecting France and Italy in the Alps. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). 39 people were killed. Application. The driver stopped, about three miles from daylight in both directions, and with a mile of solid rock above him. 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. For what its worth, Im glad it fell to others to break the truth to bikers in Val dAosta. greater awareness among users (car and truck drivers) on how to behave in emergency situations. Victims 11 deaths 5 deaths 155 deaths 12 deaths 39 deaths 5 deaths 2 injured Vehicles damaged 10 cars 23 lorries . 10-trip package: 163.30; Valid for 2 years in addition to the validation month. Twenty-seven people were asphyxiated in cars and trucks. [3] Authorities compounded the chimney effect by pumping in further fresh air from the Italian side, escalating the fire whist trapping toxic fumes inside. A control room on the French side of the Mont Blanc Tunnel.
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