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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. Or, he might simply have chosen that moment to make a routine return trip to Italy. In the United States, the National Fire Protection Association publishes a document with a dry title but life-or-death consequences: NFPA 502: Standard for Road Tunnels, Bridges and Other Limited Access Highways.. On that day, atmospheric conditions in the Alps created a fairly strong breeze in the tunnel. The Mont Blanc Tunnel Fire | A Short Documentary - YouTube Family members of the victims of the Mont-Blanc Tunnel accident walk Le tunnel du St. Gothard est le plus long (16 920 m), suivi par le tunnel du Mont Blanc et le tunnel des Tauern (11 600 m et 6 400 m respectivement). So there was a motorcycle guy who died in the fire, and a motorcycle guy who rescued several people; they just werent the same person. 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). Save almost 80%: 10.65 instead of 48.80 one way. It links Chamonix, Haute-Savoie, France with Courmayeur, Aosta Valley, Italy, via the French Route Nationale 205 and the Italian Traforo T1, in particular the motorways serving Geneva and Turin. Resistance to sprinklers in the name of safety has been a recurring theme. 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. In Italy, he says, We have a disaster or a deadly happening involving several people every week. The heat was so intense and the fumes so thick that the first group of Italian firefighters who tried to approach the inferno were forced to retreat through the ventilation shafts. [8], On the morning of 24 March 1999, the engine of a Belgian transport truck carrying volatile freight caught fire in the tunnel. The tunnel underwent major changes in the three years it remained closed after the fire. Why Is Mont Blanc One of the World's Deadliest Mountains? Nothing in the official record suggests his motivation. Safety precautions have been tightened in recent years. It was immediately obvious, as I began to read, that Spadino couldnt have saved anyone. 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. Remember the wind in the tunnel, pushing the smoke and heat from the fire towards France? A Service Analysis of the Mont Blanc Tunnel Fire - ResearchGate Within the tunnel, a minimum speed of 50km/h and a maximum speed of 70km/h applies, while the prescribed distance between vehicles is 150 m; trucks are allowed to enter in groups of five. This phase is the terminal phase of victims as a result of the fire. but more importantly the blaze made operators and designers of other tunnels re-examine fire risks. [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. Only five United States road tunnels had been equipped with sprinklers. [1] The event expanded into a catastrophe which cost the lives of 39 people. . He was, unromantically, driving a Renault Express minivan. The data base used for the calculations are enclosed in Appendix 3 (collisions) and Appendix 4 (fires) respectively. Il a t mis en service en juillet 1965. It was a once-in-a-lifetime piece. Eleven bodies had been accounted for by yesterday afternoon but now up to 30 more people are feared missing. Eight drivers, including the driver of the Belgian truck thought to have caused the accident, are known to have escaped before the fire reached its height. Mont Blanc Tunnel Fire - Documentary - YouTube Concerns included impaired visibility for motorists as well as reliability and maintenance costs. Students are requested to identify problems which were management-caused, either prior to or during the fire situation. They warned in a report that the ventilation system would be hopelessly inadequate if a serious accident happened far from a tunnel mouth. Its not clear whether he suspected trouble or thought he was making a routine trip back to the Italian portal. Over the next 35 years of uneventful service, those superlatives were taken for granted. Serious questions about the safety of the tunnel were raised by rescue organisations last year. The tunnel, opened with great fanfare in 1965, is seven miles long. The fire spread to other cargo vehicles nearby that also carried combustible loads. The death toll from a fire which trapped trucks and cars in the Mont Blanc tunnel between France and Italy is 35, the operator for the Italian side of the tunnel said last . 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. . 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. 40 deaths In March 1999 a two-day fire killed 39 people and caused extensive damage to the tunnel, forcing it to close. At the time of its construction, it was three times longer than any existing highway tunnel.[2]. Pierlucio had turned down a promotion to. The Mont Blanc Tunnel Disaster - Everything2.com Le tunnel du Mont-Blanc tait en son temps le plus long tunnel routier au monde. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. The driver escaped unhurt; the deluge system kept the fire under control until a Miami-Dade fire crew arrived. I started looking into it online. I looked again at the citation for the FIM medal. 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. Witnesses reported that the fire had very quickly become too intense to drive past. I got caught on the phrase entered the smoke-filled tunnel from the Italian side, because I knew Tinazzi wasnt on the Italian side. The International Motorcycle Federation, the world governing body of motorcycle sport, presented its highest award to his family. Technical report 05.16B Systems and equipment for fire and smoke control in road tunnels. A cargo truck carrying flour and margarine caught fire while passing through the tunnel and when the driver stopped . A Belgian lorry carrying margarine and flour skidded into the tunnel side. The driver stopped, about three miles from daylight in both directions, and with a mile of solid rock above him. [1] A commemorative plaque at the Italian entrance honours his sacrifice. Fourteen firefighters on two trucks from the ski resort of Chamonix reached the French portal in minutes. The Italian side of the Mont Blanc Tunnel. . Mont Blanc Tunnel re -opens 3 years after tragic fire in Chamonix, France on March 09, 2002. Mont Blanc Tunnel is a tunnel and road tunnel that was built from 1957 until 1965. Safely tunneling the Mont Blanc - DW - 07/17/2015 Berthier talked to me about the first Memorial Spadino biker gathering. Their commanding officer died at a nearby hospital. Moments later, the fire melted the wiring for the lights, plunging the tunnel into darkness. When built, it was the world's longest road tunnel, linking the French and Italian highway systems and shortening truck routes between. 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. A comprehensive safety system - Mont Blanc Tunnel The 1999 Mont Blanc Tunnel Fire case uses a time-line approach with discussion of events during each time period. Tunnel Inferno | Seconds from Disaster Wiki | Fandom [5] In 1908, a first design was presented by French engineer Arnold Monod, to much interest from Italian and French politicians. Fire damage rebuild of Mont Blanc road link - tunneltalk.com [1] [2] The truck came through the tollbooth at 10:46 CET. 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 But when they occur, they tend to burn long and hot, inflicting damage on the concrete walls that requires months of closure and costs millions of dollars in economic loss. On 24 March 1999, a transport truck caught fire while driving through the Mont Blanc Tunnel between France and Italy. Extract of sample "Mont Blanc Tunnel Fire". The tunnel is equipped with the following safety facilities: Every 100 m portable fire extinguishers Every 300 m garages March 20, 2023 by archyde. The fire burned for 50 hours. what happens if you snitch on the cartelmont blanc tunnel fire victims names. On 24 March 1999 a dramatic fire occurred in the Mont Blanc tunnel between France and Italy. The tunnel, linking Italy and France, was . A year after the fire, thousands of bikers gathered at the Italian portal to commemorate him. The blaze was traumatic for the close-knit Alpine communities of the French Haute-Savoie region and Val dAosta in Italy. But I never really dug back into it. 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. Emergency shelter No. But I still wondered how so many journalists, beginning with the local papers, and ending with myself, got the facts so wrong. Mont Blanc Tunnel fire (partially found CCTV footage of road tunnel Of course now, Im embarrassed that it took me 14 years to correct the record. 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. The interviews I conducted with his sister and a few close friends were heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time. I set out to write a biographical sketch of an unlikely hero. The tunnel operator, Mont Blanc Tunnel and Highway, said about 20 tractor-trailer trucks and 11 cars were destroyed in the blaze. The US magazine Rider ran an abridged version the next year. He had been devastated when his wife, who hated the alpine winters, left him and returned to her native Puglia in the far south. I fell asleep that night increasingly certain that I had gotten Searching for Spadino wrong, but lacking real evidence. Refuges equipped with telephones, and capable of sheltering up to 40 people were excavated every 600 metres in 1991. The driver of the goods vehicle was one of those prosecuted. March 27, 1999 5:00am. At 10:54, one of the drivers called from refuge 22 to raise the alarm. We have recently seen the 18th anniversary of one of the most serious road tunnel incidents in Europe, when on 24 March 1999, in the Mont Blanc tunnel, a vehicle carrying flour and margarine was involved in a deadly fire which claimed so many lives. In Seattle, the recently opened S.R. 35 die in `world's worst tunnel fire' - The Independent In a subsequent email exchange, Jean-Marc Berthier pointed out that Spadino was not trained or equipped to fight a fire. It was initiated by a heavy goods vehicle which stopped near the middle of the tunnel and immediately burst into flames. He never quite got there. [1] Drilling began in 1959 and was completed in 1962; the tunnel was opened to traffic on 19 July 1965. Spadino Pierlucio Tinazzi, who got his nickname, Italian for a thin, light sword, when he was young was just outside the French portal on his motorcycle. It has cross-passages every 450 feet so that, in a fire, people can escape through the other tunnel. 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. 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. Most of the victims had almost certainly suffocated before they burned. by red crosses) or closing of the tunnel (by traffic lights), are often neglected if not enforced by additional means (eg. A group of French firefighters took refuge in one of the new safety zones but one of them died of a heart attack. These security measures were taken as a consequence of the 1999 tunnel fire. 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. The Mont Blanc tunnel fire March 1999 killed 39 persons, of which most died within 15 min due to intoxication. Further, well-structured and reliable information on tunnel incidents is of great importance as input data for quantitative risk assessment as well as to motivate improvements in safety systems and procedures. Through them, I felt I got to know a subject who was so self-effacing that his closest friends could barely even find a snapshot of him. The Fire in the Mont-Blanc Tunnel on 24th March, 1999 The Mont Blanc tunnel was opened on 16th July, 1965. Forty-one people died in the March 24 fire in the Mont Blanc tunnel connecting France with Italy, which burned for two days. He tells me, That legend had been woven by the Italian media before anyone knew exactly what had really happened. [3] Authorities compounded the chimney effect by pumping in further fresh air from the Italian side, escalating the fire whist trapping toxic fumes inside. The Mont Blanc Tunnel is a highway tunnel between France and Italy, under the Mont Blanc mountain in the Alps. He entered before there was any formal alert. Many drivers near the blaze who attempted to leave their cars and seek refuge points were quickly overcome due to toxic components of the smoke, mainly 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. Toxicity Limit States in Tunnel Fire Safety Designs This page was last edited on 19 April 2023, at 12:22. The tunnel consists of a single gallery with a two-lane dual direction road. "Stay safe in road tunnels" in Europe and UK | Croner-i It was certainly selfless, but if the initial newspaper reports had been accurate, I doubt that the FIM and Italian government would have presented their medals. 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. Between 10:57 and 11:01, Italian firefighters had come within 300 metres of the truck, with two of them able to proceed to the garage 21. Fdration Internationale de Motocyclisme, "I wrote a story that became a legend. I tell people, This is like a building for cars.. But he died trying to do so, and local bikers still gather at the tunnel mouth once a year to honor him. The last few drivers who made it into France said the motorcyclist had appeared to be trying to catch up to the burning truck. ICYMI:WSJreporter explains why he was fired, Fdration Internationale de Motocyclisme. The opening was successful, with an axis variation of less than 13 centimetres (5 inches). 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 fire spread over 34 vehicles and was finally extinguished after 53 hours. 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. They listened as a river of incandescent margarine ignited fuel tanks and burst the tires of abandoned vehicles. He appeared to be trying to catch up to the truck that sparked the catastrophe, witnesses said. Direction Italy - France. The report revealed that Tinazzi was outside the tunnel, at the French portal, when the Belgian truck entered; Id been right about that much. And my curiosity finally got the better of me. The middle of the tunnel today looking toward Italy. Published Nov 24, 2019. 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. He could have turned back, but he didnt. The jet fans kept the tunnel air clear while it was evacuated. The major fire incidents of Mont Blanc, Tauern and St. Gotthard (1999 and 2001) led to an increased awareness of the possible impact of incidents in tunnels. 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. Introduction. [1] Tinazzi's and Devouassoux's actions were apparently intermingled in subsequent press accounts.[1]. Four years later, in 2003, I was living in France. Temperatures soared to 1,000C. The fire burned for 50 hours. Pedestrians can cross the tunnel by bus; bicycles can also be carried through the tunnel with a reservation. Others blamed a mechanical or electrical fault, or poor maintenance of the truck's engine. 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. Mont-Blanc tunnel fire: what lessons 24 years later? At 11:39, another team of firefighters entered the tunnel from the French side but were blocked at the garage 5, 4,800 metres from the truck. The most notable fire was the 1999 Mount Blanc Tunnel, seven miles long connecting France and Italy, in which 39 persons died. The French company ATMB and the Italian company SITMB each independently manage and control one half of the tunnel. Northeast of Mont Blanc's summit, the tunnel is about 15km (10mi) southwest of the tripoint with Switzerland, near Mont Dolent. In the days after the fire, regional newspapers credited Tinazzi with rescuing ten people. 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. With a length of 11.6km, the Mont Blanc Tunnel is constructed from one tube through which the traffic flows in both directions. (I could not immediately reach him for this story. Mont Blanc Tunnel, major Alpine automotive tunnel connecting France and Italy. According to the National Geographic documentary programme Seconds from Disaster, the fire and smoke appeared at around 10:49. Opening ceremony at Chamonix, France, of the seven mile tunnel under Mont Blanc on July 16, 1965 . Within 10 minutes most of the victims were dead, 300m of the tunnel was ablaze, trapping 36 vehicles including 25 lorries. Tracy Connor. (Reuters) Despite the wide coverage it received, the news last week that 11 people had died in two separate incidents just days apart on. After a long chat over Skype on technical topics, I asked whether he could confirm Tinazzis actions. Due to weather conditions at the time, airflow through the tunnel was from the Italian side to the French side. 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. We have 44 jet fans that can operate in either direction, so we can suck air away from the fire, so toxins dont affect people in 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. There were no casualties. At this spot, it lies 2,480 metres (8,140ft) beneath the surface, making it the world's second deepest operational tunnel[3] after the Gotthard Base Tunnel. . Mont Blanc Tunnel fire - Wikipedia In the Mont Blanc tunnel fire in 1999, for example, over 20 lorries were destroyed, and several people lost their lives. Le tunnel des Tauern a t ouvert en 1975, celui du St. Gothard en 1980. P. Blomqvist, M. Simonson-McNamee, in Fire Toxicity, 2010 Simulated vehicle fire in road tunnel. Reporters wrote background stories about Tinazzi, but had little to go on. He looks in his rear view mirror: his cargo of margarine and flour has caught fire. Moreover, this report presents updated statistical data on tunnel collisions (Chapter 3) and fires (Chapter 4) for many countries. At this point, there were at least 10 cars and 18 trucks in the tunnel that had entered from the French side. Webcams Account verification Call for Bids. 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. A few minutes after Mr. Tinazzi rode in, two trucks from the Chamonix Fire Department arrived carrying 14 firefighters. Nearly 2,000 people died and some 9,000 were injured in the disaster, which flattened more than 1 square mile (2.5 square km) of the city of Halifax. For what its worth, Im glad it fell to others to break the truth to bikers in Val dAosta. Two decades ago, 39 people died inside the Mont Blanc Tunnel in a fire so horrific it changed safety standards forever. Start your Independent Premium subscription today. Unfortunately, he failed to return from his final visit into the tunnel and himself became a victim of the tragic inferno. The truck came through the tollbooth at 10:46 CET. It was more than five days before the tunnel cooled sufficiently to start repairs. Mont Blanc Tunnel Toll Prices - Get from France to Italy - Chamonix In the end, we all believe in the things that help us get through our days. Members of a direct response crew in the firefighter hangar on the French side. Most drivers rolled up their windows and waited for rescue. The highway trunk from Aosta to the tunnel on the Italian side was completed in 2007.[12]. Twenty-seven people were asphyxiated in cars and trucks. Tunnel Safety 20 Years after the Mont Blanc Fire - LinkedIn French highway network. An honor guard filled the tiny cemetery where he was buried. When it stopped halfway through the tunnel, it violently combusted. He had been presented with medals and buried with honors long before I arrived in Val dAosta. The fire burned for fifty-three hours and was estimated to have reached a temperature of 1,000C (1,830F), mainly because of the margarine load in the trailer, equivalent to a 23,000-litre (5,100impgal; 6,100USgal) oil tanker. [Read the original Times coverage of the 1999 fire at the Mont Blanc Tunnel.]. Pierlucio Tinazzi (lost radio communication from Mont Blanc Tunnel fire But interest in the story really took off in April 2006 when it appeared in the UK monthly Bike. 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. The Mont Blanc Tunnel finally reopened in 2002. Italian firefighters finally reached the epicentre of the blaze yesterday, 48 hours later. This was not yet considered a fire emergency. The original fire doors on the cubicles were rated to survive for two hours. It passes almost directly under Europes highest peak. It felt like someone I had been married to for years had been cheating on me all along. The Mont Blanc Tunnel is not like any other road tunnel: at 11.6 kilometers long, it was the world's longest road tunnel when it opened for traffic on July 19, 1965. When the full report on the Mont Blanc fire finally came out, it was evident that additional measures of fire protection and emergency response planning would have reduced the significance of the fire, Mr. Connell recalled. Defendants in the trial included: The exact cause of the fire is disputed. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). 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. FIREFIGHTER HISTORY 3/24 - Firefighter Close Calls 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. That same year, the STMB (Socit du tunnel du Mont Blanc) was formed, which became ATMB (Autoroutes et Tunnel du Mont Blanc) in 1996. Over the years, there have been a few occasions when complete strangers thanked me for writing, Searching for Spadino. That always made my day. Temperatures in the tunnel reached at least 1,832 degrees . 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. In the Mont-Blanc fire in March 1999, the asphalt road . It began on March 24, 1999 when a Volvo FH12 semi-truck from Belgium, carrying a cargo of nine tons of margarine and 12 tons of flour, stopped to pay the toll at the French portal of the Mont Blanc Tunnel. In death, hed become an unofficial patron saint of Italian bikers. I would never have traveled to Val dAosta in search of the heros backstory. Mr. Tinazzi was most likely the first tunnel employee to realize the Belgian truck was trailing smoke. In the tunnel, the margarine had melted and then turned into a highly flammable vapor. Its citation, like those early newspaper reports, credited Mr. Tinazzi with saving several people, even though the legend of the biker-hero had been woven by the Italian media before anyone knew exactly what had really happened, said Antoine Chandellier, a French journalist who has reported on the region for decades. + Follow. All of them survived but their commanding officer, who died in a hospital. Updates? This article was most recently revised and updated by, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Mont-Blanc-Tunnel, British Broadcasting Corporation - Mont Blanc tunnel. At the time, considering that four years had already gone by since the fire, I concluded that French and Italian bureaucrats were deliberately dragging the investigation out, to keep the records sealed, so that neither side would ever have to accept blame.