Fire in a tunnel is a very frightening prospect. Lengthy tunnels are equipped to handle such a scenario but shorter ones are not, which is why huge gulfs of smoke were yesterday morning seen coming from the tunnel entrance on a main road in Nanjing’s Hexi area.
The commute for some heading to work in Nanjing on 6 January was an eventful one indeed, whereby some opted for the perceived safety of their cars, while others braved the smoke that had begun to engulf the tunnel as a result of two vehicle fires.
Occurring in the Longjiang Tunnel along Jiangdong Zhong Lu at 07.56 yesterday, the accident took the form of a collision between two vehicles travelling on the northbound lanes of the road. Both cars spontaneously combusted.
Firefighters were on the scene in just 7 minutes from the Qingjiang Village Fire Station that is approximately 3 kilometres away from the site of the accident.
A total of 13 firefighters and three fire engines were deployed to fight the inferno, reported the Yangte Evening News.
Fire Station head, Wei Yulong, said, “When we arrived near the scene, we found that there was a lot of smoke inside the tunnel, and we couldn’t see the specific situation inside from the outside”.
Yet, the first job at hand was the removal of all the vehicles that had piled up at the entrance to the tunnel and those inside that prevented fire engines from accessing the scene. As a result, water belts were deployed into the tunnel from the main fire engine.
The fire was successfully put out at 08:17 and traffic permitted to flow again some 25 minutes later. By 09:40 traffic was also allowed back on the lanes in the tunnel affected by the blaze. There were no casualties.
Longjiang Tunnel, like several others along Jiangdong Zhong Lu, is short, at just 300-400 metres in length. As such, there is no requirement for it to be equipped with a ventilation system or any kind of firefighting apparatus.
Tunnels of longer length, however, such as the two under the Yangtze River in Nanjing, have very large ventilators installed, as well as independent fire-water supply systems. In addition, emergency telephones are placed every 200 metres and fire-fighting equipment boxes at 50 metre intervals.
Last but not least, these lengthy tunnels also have a separate emergency escape tunnel alongside, with access doors regularly spaced throughout the tunnel, through which people may be evacuated in the case of serious fire.
