80 missing after Swiss tunnel fire

Two crashes in 24 hours that result in a major European traffic nightmare with another major tunnel already closed from a previous accident. Very strange. I smell Osama.

another isolated incident?

Terrorist action is possible. Interesting timing, coming so soon after the discovery of a man from Egypt hiding in a freight container on a ship bound for Canada. He had ample provisions, furniture, clothing, etc. He was also carrying several passports, airline tickets and papers giving him access to airport secure areas. He was discovered in a cargo port in Italy.

We'll have to wait and see what the reports are. But Europe is filled with Muslim guest-workers, and their security procedures are extremely lax. These tunnels are obvious choke points. Even on a good day, there are miles of trucks waiting to get through them.

Here's the full article. Ten mile tunnels seem inherently dangerous, and you'd think they'd have a been plan for situations like this.

Swiss Police Say 80 Missing After Tunnel Blaze

Photos
Reuters Photo

By Jane Barrett

AIROLO, Switzerland (Reuters) - Some 80 people were still missing on Thursday after a truck crash in a road tunnel through the Swiss Alps, and a second fatal accident near another Swiss tunnel compounded traffic chaos in the heart of Europe.

Officials have so far confirmed 10 people -- nine men and one woman -- died after two trucks collided in the Gotthard tunnel on Wednesday, setting off a fierce fire which turned the narrow 10-mile two-lane tunnel into a blazing inferno.

``We still have 80 people unaccounted for,'' Romano Piazzini, head of police in the canton of Ticino, told a news briefing.

Police insisted there was no link between the crashes and suicide attacks in the United States last month that killed thousands of people. ``That would be pure fantasy,'' Piazzini said.

Rescue workers were still battling intense heat in the Gotthard tunnel to get to the scene of Wednesday's accident. Parts of the tunnel's roof collapsed, burying between 10 and 40 vehicles, police said.

A second fatal truck accident in the Swiss Alps closed the four-mile St. Bernhard tunnel route for several hours.

Local police said a truck crashed into a car and a mini bus after it exited the St. Bernhard tunnel, the closest alternative to the Gotthard, killing the mini bus driver. The closure of both the Gotthard and the St. Bernhard routes caused major problems for freight haulers and tourists.

The accidents effectively cut off Italy's main road links to the north, following the shutdown in 1999 of the Mont Blanc tunnel to France after a fire, also set off by a truck.

The St. Bernhard route reopened for freight traffic around mid-day. Police warned it would take hours to clear the backlog of trucks in Ticino and at Chiasso, the main border crossing from Italy.

``It's utter chaos, we've got lines of traffic in all directions,'' said Marco Guscio, head of the Ticino traffic police. ``There's lines of trucks just standing on the road.''

BATTLING HEAT AND SMOKE

At the Gotthard, rescuers worked through the night, battling intense heat and acrid smoke to get to the site of the collision some 1 mile into the southern end of the narrow tunnel. One of the trucks had been carrying tires.

But more than 24 hours after two trucks crashed head-on in the Gotthard, the world's second-longest tunnel, the fire was still not fully under control.

``We have been going in and out all night, just working in shifts,'' said one rescue worker. ``The main thing is to get the temperature down because only then will they be able to assess the structural damage. We have got to make it safe.''

Rescue workers expected the death toll to rise from the 10 deaths confirmed. ``There's an area of about 250 meters that we just can't get to because of the heat and the smoke,'' said Piazzini.

Photos
Reuters Photo

Officials said between 10 and 40 cars may have been crushed by parts of the tunnel's roof that had collapsed.

Thick smoke had felled some fleeing travelers just yards from safety and temperatures had reached 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit, fusing cars and trucks into a mass of molten metal.

Wisps of smoke were still coming out of the tunnel's ventilation shafts on Thursday.

TRAFFIC CHAOS

The winding four-lane highway descending from the St. Bernhard was closed for northbound cargo traffic for hours, causing major traffic bottlenecks.

Swiss-bound trucks from Italy were held for several hours at the main border crossing at Chiasso.

Officials said the Gotthard tunnel, badly damaged by the intense fire and a powerful explosion that ripped through it shortly after the crash, was likely to remain closed for weeks.

Swiss railways increased capacity on their own routes to ease the congestion.

Swiss Radio traffic bulletins urged travelers not to drive south, but take the train. Truckers were advised to use the Grand St. Bernard tunnel, south of Geneva, some 160 km (100 miles) east of the Gotthard.

Industry sources said 80 percent of air cargo trucked from Italy for embarkation at European airports -- around 280,000 tons -- goes via the Gotthard.

The Mont Blanc route linking France and Italy was due to reopen by the end of this year but no date has yet been set.

Wednesday's accident came just two and a half years after flames engulfed the Mont Blanc tunnel when a truckload of flour and margarine caught fire. Some 30 vehicles were destroyed and the official death toll is put variously at 39 or 40.

The Gotthard tunnel, completed in 1980, links Goeschenen in the north with Airolo, 10 miles from the Italian frontier, saving drivers several miles of narrow, twisting mountain road over the St. Gotthard pass that can be closed for up to six months every year because of bad weather.

Light snow was falling there on Thursday.

Many Saudi princes live in Switzerland.
Many were raised there, went to college in the US,
then go back and forth between Saudi Arabia and Switzerland.

It could very well be that OBL wants to put a bug up some of their backsides.

It does sound a bit much, but every time I went throught the Gotthard, ~ 15 miles of tunnel with cars going in different directions (two lanes, one each way) passing within 2 feet, I was sure something would go wrong. I don't think they'd let it be built in its present form today. Moreover, when people are extremely tense, more accidents tend to happen. It could be intentional, but I don't see what the benefit would be to the miscreants de jour.

For some it's scary just going through. I also doubt an intentional attack. The current number of missing people has risen to 128. Tragic.

My husband is in UK right now and says it is the big story over there--but we have heard nothing about it here. Timing is unusual and many speculate that these might have been suicidal drivers. Imagine if this happened in NY or the Chunnel.

If it was so dangerous all along, why hasn't something like this happened often before now?

Yep, revenge for freezing assets. Did anyone else notice that tunnel in the rock in the background of the first Usama video? It was to the upper right shoulder above his head, I thought it was a hidden message immediately when I saw it there.