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THE DISASTERS THAT PROMPTED THE POLICY It is not hard
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to see why Europe wanted a common policy for which hazardous cargoes should be allowed in which tunnels.
A series of disasters has highlighted how dangerous tunnels can be. Among them:
• March 1999: The Mont Blanc Tunnel fire killed 39 people.
• May 1999: Tauern motorway tunnel, Austria. Twelve people died, and 50 were injured in a blaze.
• May 2001: A truck caught fire in the Papuntin Tunnel, on the road to Frejus, which links France with northern Italy.
• August 2001: Two children died and four others were injured following a crash in the Gleinalm Tunnel, north of the Austrian city of Graz.
• October 2001: In the St Gotthard Tunnel that links Switzerland with Italy, two trucks collided head-on, causing a fire that killed 11 people.
• Days later a truck and a van collided on an access road to the San Bernardino Tunnel in Switzerland. Nobody was injured, but the tunnel was temporarily shut.
The above list does not include three Channel Tunnel fires in 12 years, although it is worth mentioning that hazardous cargo has not in itself caused many of the fires, although, clearly, it has the potential to make them worse. The classic example of the non-hazardous cargo being no guarantee against a serious truck fire was the Mont Blanc disaster — the truck on which the fire started was carrying flour and margarine.