1In August, 962, it took France and Italy five years to build the Mont Blanc tunnel with a total length of 1 1.6 kilometers under Mont Blanc in the Alps, thus shortening the distance between Paris and Rome by about 220 kilometers.
The monitoring screen shows that on March 24th,1999 10: 47, a Belgian truck carrying 9 tons of margarine and 12 tons of flour entered the Mont Blanc tunnel at a speed of 60 km/h. ..
About 5 minutes later, when the truck drove into the tunnel about 2 kilometers away, suddenly smoke billowed from the rear. However, Gilbert, the truck driver at that time, did not find this problem. It was not until he drove into the tunnel about 6 kilometers ago that he found that the rear of the car was on fire. He immediately turned on the signal light, jumped out of the car quickly, picked up a fire extinguisher and sprayed it at the flame. The result is a drop in the bucket and useless. So he immediately left the van and ran in the direction of Italy.
However, the cars from France didn't know that one car after another followed into this death tunnel.
A minute later, both Italy and France received the driver's distress call and immediately closed the toll station, but at this time, 38 people were trapped in the tunnel.
At this moment, however, the Italian side did a very stupid thing, blowing air into the tunnel. As a result, not only did the smoke not blow away, but the fire burned more and more fiercely with the help of oxygen.
In desperation, the drivers had to hide in temporary shelters in nearby tunnels. At this time, the Italian fire truck also rushed over, but unfortunately it was only less than 4 kilometers ahead and could not enter again. Subsequently, firefighters intend to enter the rescue on foot. However, six explosions occurred in the tunnel in succession, and the explosion airflow contained a lot of metal and sand fragments, flying around. In an instant, the fireman who rushed in front was hit by countless pieces and fell to the ground.
As a result, firefighters had to give up rescue, evacuate quickly and escape with the help of ventilation pipes. After that, I could only watch 38 people trapped buried in smoke and fire.
In this way, the fire has been burning for 53 hours.
A week after the fire was extinguished, France and Italy hurriedly organized accident investigators to enter the cooled tunnel for exploration. However, the scene in front of us surprised the investigators. The tunnel vault was completely burnt and desertified, and the asphalt on the ground melted into paste, leaving only the frame of the car, most of the bodies were reduced to ashes, and a few bodies were burned into small charcoal blocks.
According to experts' inference, the temperature in the tunnel had exceeded1000 C at that time.
During the investigation, accident investigators of the two countries found that automatic fire extinguishing system and automatic smoke exhaust system were installed in Mont Blanc tunnel. Results When the fire broke out, the advanced fire fighting system in the tunnel did not start automatically.
Therefore, Gé rard Jungoli, then the safety manager of Mont Blanc Tunnel, was identified as the main person responsible for the accident, sentenced to half a year's imprisonment and fined 1.2 million euros. At the same time, Remy Chardon, the former president of Mont Blanc Tunnel Company, and Gilbert, the truck driver, were found to be jointly and severally liable, and were fined 1.5 million euros to 1.5 million euros respectively.
After that, although France and Italy once closed the Mont Blanc Tunnel for three years and successively invested more than 300 million euros to upgrade the security system, they reopened it. However, such a terrible disaster has become a lifelong nightmare for many people. Therefore, fire safety can not be ignored, and the fire safety alarm bell is ringing.