(Reuters) Despite the wide coverage it received, the news last week that 11 people had died in two separate incidents just days apart on. THE 2001 GOTTHARD ROAD TUNNEL FIRE - Transportation Research Board The Mont Blanc Tunnel was originally managed by the two building companies. When it stopped halfway through the tunnel, it violently combusted. [4] Renovations include computerized detection equipment, extra security bays, a parallel escape shaft and a fire station in the middle of the tunnel complete with double-cabbed fire trucks. 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). 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. A reporter asked for 20 years of lottery winner data. 38 road users and a fireman lost their lives in the . Introduction. 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. But the one thing everyone agreed on was that Spadino loved motorcycles. Gilbert Degrave, the driver of the truck, received a four-month suspended sentence. [11] 677 Mont Blanc Tunnel Premium High Res Photos - Getty Images 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. Tunnel du Mont Blanc - Tempratures atteintes dans la chausse et comportement au feu de la chausse, Document The initial journey through the tunnel was routine. On 24th March 1999 a transport truck caught fire while driving through the Mont Blanc tunnel between Italy and France. The fire burned for 50 hours. The safety shafts also have clean air flowing through them via vents. but more importantly the blaze made operators and designers of other tunnels re-examine fire risks. William Connell, a tunnel systems engineer, was working on the enormous tunnel project known as the Big Dig in Boston at the time of the fire. Within 10 minutes most of the victims were dead, 300m of the tunnel was ablaze, trapping 36 vehicles including 25 lorries. In 1953, France and Italy agreed to jointly build and operate a motor-vehicle tunnel between Chamonix-Mont Blanc in France and Courmayeur in Italy. That was a small mercy.