Courmayeur · Italy
The Mont Blanc tunnel
Under the mountain before you runs a road. The Mont Blanc tunnel extends 11.6 kilometres from Entrèves to Chamonix, and when it opened in 1965 it closed an era: for the first time the range could be crossed in a quarter of an hour, by car, without looking at it. The valley changed shape around it. Lorries arrived, and the traffic that had gone round the Alps began to pass through them. On 24 March 1999 a lorry caught fire inside. Thirty-nine people died in the smoke. The tunnel remained shut for three years and reopened with a different conception of safety: fire refuges, a required distance between vehicles, and a rescue crew stationed within. It is still the fastest way across, and it is still a tunnel beneath a glacier.
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How long did it take to dig?
About eight years, dug from both ends at once. The two headings met in 1962, under the middle of the massif, a few centimetres out. For the time it was a remarkable piece of calculation.
What happened in 1999?
A lorry carrying flour and margarine caught fire halfway through. The load burned for hours at very high temperatures and the smoke filled the tunnel within minutes. Thirty-nine people died. The fire safety rules now used in tunnels across Europe came out of it.
Where is the border?
Inside the tunnel, roughly halfway. It is run jointly by an Italian and a French company, each responsible for its own half, which is a complicated way to operate a hole in the rock.
Where it is
More stories in Courmayeur
- The Aiguille Blanche
- The Aiguille Noire
- Duke of the Abruzzi Alpine Museum
- The Brenva Spur
- The Guides' House
- Church of Saint Pantaléon
- The quiet col
- The Col de la Seigne