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Carsten Rehder / dpa
After a traffic jam on the A7 due to a fire in the Elbe tunnel, a 52-year-old drove his small car onto a truck and was fatally injured.
He died at the scene of the accident, said a police spokesman for the German Press Agency.
According to the information, the accident happened around 4:30 p.m. between the Hamburg-Marmsdorf junction and the Hamburg-Südwest motorway triangle.
A burning car in Hamburg's Elbtunnel had led to significant traffic delays on the important north-south A7 motorway.
The driver probably drove onto the end of the traffic jam, the spokesman said.
The A7 northbound was closed until around 8:30 p.m. after the fatal accident.
Because of the fire in one of the tunnel tubes to the north, the motorway was initially completely closed.
"Please give way," the police tweeted.
The Hamburg fire brigade tweeted that it was at the scene of the fire with an extensive contingent of emergency services.
The exact cause of the fire was not initially known.
No one was injured in the fire reported at 2:15 p.m., a police spokesman said.
Although, according to the police, traffic could be released again at least towards the south around 2:50 p.m., the vehicles were backed up in both directions for several kilometers.
atb/dpa
