Humanity has rapidly developed into the only intelligent civilization in the history of earth's biological life, and it is precisely because of this that the impact on the earth's ecosystem since humans entered the industrial society may be greater than the impact of millions of species on the earth for billions of years. In the process of rapid development, human beings have also experienced many setbacks, and there have been countless disasters, some of which are natural disasters on the earth.
For example, the impact of hurricanes, the United States is the most common experience of tornadoes, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) statistics, there will be more than 1200 tornadoes a year, recently many states in the United States are being baptized by tornadoes, some serious local urban centers have been pushed to the ground, and caused a catastrophic impact, a large number of casualties.
In addition to natural disasters, there are many disasters caused by people themselves, such as mining accidents, oil spills, and mine explosions. Typical examples of Lake Pinel, which occur in the southern region of Louisiana, usa, a 36cm thick drill bit drilled through the salt mine under Lake Pinel, resulting in 13 billion liters of seawater being swallowed up instantly, and finally the seawater was inverted, and a freshwater lake instantly became a saltwater lake, which completely changed the nearby ecological environment, and many freshwater fish were eliminated.
Today's story is about the very famous Mont Blanc Tunnel Fire, which occurred in March 1999 when a truck filled with butter and flour ignited the tunnel and after two days and two nights of high temperatures baking, dozens of people were reduced to ashes.
Mont Blanc Tunnel is located at the bottom of Mont Blanc, the highest peak of the Alps, human development and expansion footprint throughout all corners of the earth, in order to communicate traffic more conveniently, in the face of the mountains and rivers in front, we dig tunnels and bridges, so that the distance is shortened as much as possible, reducing the time and energy required on the road.
The construction of the Mont Blanc Tunnel is very practical, in the past, large truck drivers need to drive more than 7 hours on the winding road to achieve freight traffic between France and Italy, but after the completion of the Mont Blanc Tunnel, the whole process only takes about 15 minutes.
The Mont Blanc Tunnel also became one of the longest tunnels in the world, with a total length of 11.6 kilometers, from 1958 france and Italy began to excavate the tunnel, after about four years of construction, in 1962 the entire construction period was completely completed, the real commissioning time was in 1965, every day a large number of trucks in the Mont Blanc Tunnel round-trip.
Before March 1999, although there was also a fire in the Mont Blanc Tunnel, it was extinguished in time, and there was no particularly serious disaster. At that time, safety was also taken into account when digging the tunnel, especially fire safety, so a fireproof room was set up every 600 meters inside the tunnel, and the tunnel was equipped with 77 emergency telephones, and there were professional rescue teams on standby at both ends of the tunnel.
But even so, on March 24, 1999, one of the worst tunnel fires in human history occurred.
At 10:46 a.m. on March 24, 1999, a Volvo semi-trailer filled with margarine and flour pulled up at the toll booth at the French end, where he was about to take the shipment to Milan, driven by a 57-year-old Belgian with more than 20 years of driving experience.
After all the inspections were ready, the truck entered the tunnel at 10:46, and after only two or three minutes, white smoke rose from the rear of the truck, but the driver did not perceive this phenomenon, and he continued to move at high speed to the Italian side until he was almost halfway through the tunnel, and at the same time, under the constant reminder of the opposite vehicle, the truck driver noticed that there was a thick white smoke rising from his trailer, and immediately signaled emergency braking to prepare for rescue.
But when the vehicle just stopped, smoke took over almost the entire tunnel, and in less than a minute the fire was lit. The driver saw the situation and quickly ran in the direction of Italy, while the toll stations at both ends of the tunnel, although they received alarms, did not stop, and there was still a steady stream of vehicles entering from both ends of France and Italy.
As more and more vehicles gathered, smoke billowed in, and many drivers realized that it was not good to start abandoning the car and fleeing, but in the end, 38 drivers did not escape from the tunnel, and it was difficult for the rescue team to enter the rescue again. In this way, the fire in the tunnel lasted for 53 hours, the temperature once exceeded 1000 degrees Celsius, the entire tunnel was like a purgatory on earth, the asphalt pavement was burned, the internal top structure was peeled off in large quantities, according to the description of rescuers, the burned tunnel was no less than the lava pipe of the volcano, and everything that the 38 victims encountered could be imagined.
The disaster was caused by a cigarette butt, and experts through the accident site investigation believed that the passing vehicle threw the cigarette butt to the top of the carriage, and eventually it slid down the air filter, igniting the paper air filter, and the truck began to burn.
There are also several key factors here, that is, the truck from high speed to stop, resulting in a full outbreak of fire, because the rapid flow of air at high speed will contain the fire; followed by the bottom of the truck is very close to the source of the fire is the diesel tank, there are hundreds of liters of diesel; the most important time is the train's refrigeration cabinet inside the polystyrene material, the high temperature plus liquidized butter, and finally let the truck accelerate combustion and multiple explosions.
In addition, there were several other trucks in front of and behind the burning truck, and they were all ignited together. Some vehicles have tried to turn to escape, but have failed, and experts believe that the rapid spread of smoke and combustion reduces the oxygen content, and the cars are turned off and cannot start.
Fire is the disaster that human beings should pay attention to at any time, especially with the development of human beings, the floors we live on are getting higher and higher, the tunnels are more and more, and the subway has become an important means of travel for human beings.
Text/science black hole, image source network intrusion deletion.