A fire in a truck engine that broke out Wednesday turned a heavily traveled highway tunnel under Mont Blanc into an underground inferno that killed at least 35 people before exhausted firefighters extinguished it today.
French, Italian and Swiss fire brigades struggled for more than 50 hours to penetrate and ventilate the fume-choked seven-mile tunnel that connects France and Italy. They finally smothered the hot core of the blaze this afternoon and began to reckon the deaths and identify the victims.
The fire started at around 11 a.m. Wednesday when a Belgian truck carrying a cargo of margarine and flour caught fire about midway through the tunnel. Firefighting teams reported that seven other trucks collided in the narrow two-way, two-lane tunnel as billowing smoke reduced visibility to zero.
