Loose wood and petrol in the tunnel caused huge detour and 20km traffic jam at start of holiday
Motorists coming out of the 20km traffic jam were met near Vevey by a very local cloudburst that did little to speed up traffic
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Vaud police are looking for a driver who lost a pallet of wood Wednesday afternoon on the A9 autoroute. The wood slid off the unknown vehicle about 100 metres into the Flonzalley tunnel after Lausanne, heading in the direction of Vevey. The wood scattered and was run over by eight vehicles, hitting the gas tank of one of them. Several other vehicles that either hit or tried to avoid the wood were spun off the road.
Fortunately, say police, there were no victims, but the damage to property is considerable.
The petrol that spilled from the damaged tank spread along several hundred metres in the tunnel. Police quickly closed off the area for 25 minutes and sent some of the traffic on a long detour towards Yverdon and Bern before it headed back in the direction of Valais.
One lane was opened later, but with traffic was predictably heavy at the start of the four-day Ascension holiday weekend, a traffic jam some 20km long bogged down traffic as far back as the Ste Croix junction at Crissier. Traffic moved at a crawl until well after 18:00, when both lanes were opened, just as very local showers hit the area.
The accident required six police teams, fire trucks, special highway department units and a high-pressure cleaning machine.
Police are asking anyone with information about the driver and the vehicle that was carrying the wood to contact them at +41 21 644 4444 or to contact the nearest police station.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The cause of the bus crash that killed 28 people 13 March in Sierre, and injured 24 others, was most likely human error or a technical problem, the public prosecutor in charge of the case insists, despite media stories making the rounds that the driver may have been inserting a DVD or have been distracted by a teacher who brought the DVD to the front of the bus, information the chief investigator denies.
Two parents of children who were injured have reportedly told media that the children say a one of the teachers had gone to the front of the bus to hand the DVD to the driver.
A team of investigators that includes a specialist in interviewing children in police cases will be traveling from Switzerland to Belgium next week to interview the children as part of the effort to understand what went wrong.
Olivier Elsig, who is heading the investigation, says that while recovering children have said they saw the menu for a movie come up on the screen shortly before the crash, there is no evidence nor does he have any reports that someone had moved to the front of the bus. Film footage from the tunnel shortly before the crash shows all the adults seated at the front of the bus.
The cause of the crash remains unclear, but Elsig Friday 16 March issued a statement making a number of points:
Technical investigations
- Investigators are completing the mapping of the scene and analyzing recovered traces of the accident
- Video footage have made it possible to follow the path of the bus: they exclude an initial crash on the left side of the tunnel as well as the involvement of another vehicle
- Several documents about the buses and their drivers have been received in Valais and are being reviewed
- Tachygraph disk scanning will allow investigators to determine the precise speed of the bus; the first images appear to show the bus going under the speed limit, which is 100kph in the tunnel
- The technical check of the bus is underway; experts are being selected who will ultimately determine if the vehicle had any defects.
Interviews
- People who were driving near the bus before the accident, and who contacted police, are still being interviewed
- A dozen of the children who were injured have been interviewed and no information has turned up that would make it possible to determine the causes(s) of the accident: this includes the theory of a moment of inattention while linked to a DVD being inserted – none of the witnesses saw the driver making such moves.
The autopsy
Partial autopsy results (further analyses are being done) show that:
- it appears the driver died from trauma injuries
- no presence of alcohol was found in his system
- no pre-existing pathology or other element has turned up to encourage the idea he may have had a sudden health problem.
Causes of the accident
Two theories remain:
- a technical cause linked to a vehicle defect
- human cause as a result of error or a moment’s inattention.
The bus came from the south, bottom of image, entered the roundabout (centre of image), then headed west into the tunnel, shown with dotted lines, bottom left
SIERRE / GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The cause of the Tuesday night 13 March bus crash that killed 28 in Sierre could remain a mystery for some time, with the two drivers dead and no immediate explanation for an accident in good weather, at the start of a trip, in a relatively new and well-lit tunnel.
The group was from two towns in Belgium, and was mostly children, who had been at a ski camp in the Val d’Anniviers.
Correction: The bus entered the 13-year-old Gamsen tunnel, which is 2km long, shortly after a roundabout at the end of the road coming down the mountain from the Val d’Anniviers in canton Valais.
Near the end of the tunnel, towards the A9 west exit for Sierre, heading in the direction of Sion, the bus veered to the right and crashed head-on into an emergency area wall.
The tunnel will be familiar to anyone who goes to resorts in the upper Valais area, including Zermatt, Saas Fee and Leukerbad, or from western Switzerland to Italy via the Simplon pass or tunnel, since it links the end of the autoroute and the cantonal highway that is the main artery to these areas.
Gamsen tunnel (photo, 2002, ©2012 Swiss Federal Highway Department)
It was inaugurated in 1999 and is part of a project to complete the autoroute to Italy via the Simplon, planned for 2019. The stretch to be completed is 31.8km, of which 15.8km will be tunnels, in part to protect the eco-system along the Rhone River and the Pfyn forest, the region’s first national forest.
There are several stretches of the road from Sierre to Brig that are under construction, but the area around the Gamsen tunnel, in the direction of Sion, does not have any roadworks at the moment.
Head-on crash in Martigny tunnel killed 1, injured 3 others in the car and the van driver
SION, SWITZERLAND - Canton Valais police are seeking witnesses or people with information that will clarify what caused a head-on crash that killed a 65-year-old woman and sent five others to hospital late Wednesday, in Martigny.
The crash occurred Wednesday 18 August at 17:30 in the Mont-Chemin tunnel, near the Transalpin roundabout. The 66-year-old driver of the car, from canton Aargau, was heading towards the A21. A van, driven by a 24-year-old Portuguese man, was coming from the opposite direction.
The reason for the collision is unclear.
The driver, both occupants of the van and two children, ages 7 and 11 who were in the rear of the car, were taken to hospital with injuries, but police have not said what their conditions are.
Anyone with information is asked to call cantonal police at +41 27 326 4656.
A group of thieves tunneled their way into an underground vault at Credit Lyonnais in Paris Saturday night 27 March and took off with an unknown amount after nine hours of work, police say. They worked their way from a neighbouring building at the Place de l’Opera into the bank, where they tied up a security guard while they lifted the contents of some 200 private safes. They set fire to the building, which was then flooded by the sprinkler system that was triggered by the fire alarm.
Cars on trains, north-south Kandersteg-Loetschental link
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Snow began falling steadily down to 500 metres in the central Alpine areas in Switzerland, Monday evening 28 December, adding to travelers’ slowdowns that started over the weekend. Saturday was the annual heavy car traffic day in Swiss resort areas, with day skiers joining people who were starting or ending weekly rentals during the highest period of the year, Christmas to New Year’s.
Lines of cars several kilometres long formed Saturday late in the afternoon, coming down from Swiss ski resorts in canton Bern, mixing with north-south European traffic. The north-south piggyback (cars on trains) shortcut between Kandersteg and Goppenstein, a 15-minute tunnel trip through the Alps, has been moving several trains an hour filled with cars, since Christmas. The wait on Saturday was about 20 minutes, with the system working efficiently.
Sites with current traffic data: TCS automobile club, maps (Fre), TSR/swisstxt map and Swiss federal site for truck drivers
Link: Goppenstein train for cars and MeteoSwiss weather forecast for Switzerland
St Gotthard, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The St Gotthard tunnel had a 10km traffic jam most of the day Friday and it is likely to be worse Saturday 18 July, say authorities. The expected heavy holiday traffic heading south was compounded by bad weather, which appears to have led many drivers to take the tunnel instead of the mountain pass. Updates from truckinfo
Vesenaz, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Green Party in Geneva and its allies collected over 8,700 signatures required to force a referendum on the construction of a tunnel under the village of Vesenaz, the financing of which was approved by the cantonal parliament in May 2009. The issue will now be put on the ballot in November 2009 at the earliest. Some 30,000 cars a day drive through the village of Vesenaz, on the left bank, to reach Geneva.
St Gotthard tunnel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The road between Lucerne and Chiasso near and including the Gotthard tunnel is closed in both directions because of roadworks, during the nights of 15-19 June from 20:00 to 05:00. Trucks are being held on either side of the tunnel starting at 19:30 and cars are being sent on a detour over the pass.
Swiss road news updates:
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The commune of Collonge-Bellerive has waited many years for the tunnel project that will reduce traffic along a major road into and out of Geneva, Francine de Planta, municipal mayor, has told GenevaLunch.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Green party in Geneva has launched a drive to collect 7,000 signatures before 6 July to oppose the building of a tunnel under the village of Vesenaz. The Greens oppose the project because of its high cost, the fact that it benefits relatively few people, and does not solve the problem of traffic, which is regional, according to a spokesperson.
