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The Mont Blanc Tunnel is a road tunnel in the Alps between France and Italy.
The two most famous cities near Mont Blanc are Chamonix, Haute-Savoie, France and Courmayeur, Valle d'Aosta, Italy. Begun in 1957 and completed in 1965, the 11.6 kilometer (7.25 mile) Mont Blanc Tunnel runs beneath the mountain between these two cities. It is one of the major trans-Alpine transport routes particularly for Italy who rely on the tunnel for shipping as much as one-third of their freight to northern Europe. .
On March 24, 1999, within 14 minutes, 39 people died when a Belgian transport truck carrying flour and margarine caught fire in the 8.6 meter wide tunnel at 10:53 a.m. CET. The fire, reaching temperatures of 1,000° Celsius, trapped around 40 vehicles in dense and poisonous smoke (containing carbon monoxide and cyanide). Due to the air movement, only cars on one side of the tunnel were trapped, while cars on the other side of fire were unaffected. As a result of the fire, the tunnel was closed for three years while numerous safety features were installed. Of the 39 dead, 38 died trapped inside their vehicles, 1 firefighter died in hospital after the disaster of his injuries.
The tunnel underwent major changes in the three years it remained closed after the fire. Renovations include computerised detection equipment, extra security bays, and a parallel escape shaft.
Manslaughter trial
In Grenoble, France, 16 people and companies were tried on January 31, 2005 for effective manslaughter for the fire.
Defendants in the trial included:
- Gilbert Degrave, the Belgian driver of the truck that caused the fire
- Volvo, the truck's manufacturer
- French and Italian managers of the tunnel
- ATMB and SITMB
- Safety regulators
- Mayor of Chamonix
- A senior official of the French Ministry of Public Works
The cause of the fire is in dispute. Different accounts report it to be a cigarette stub, a mechanical fault, or poor maintenance of the truck's engine.
The closest smoke detector was out of order and French emergency services do not use the same radio frequency as those inside the tunnel.
The Italian company responsible for operating the tunnel, SITMB, paid 13.5 million euros ($17.5 million) to an account for families of the victims.
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