Almost 600 accidents, one every 15 hours
.
These are the data relating to accidents in road tunnels that occurred in Italy in 2021 that emerged during a conference organized by the
Fire Brigade Department
and
ACI
at the Higher Fire Prevention Institute in Rome.
It was the president of ACI Angelo Sticchi Damiani who provided the numbers: accidents in tunnels totaled 595 out of a total of approximately 151 thousand;
of these, 114 occurred on motorways, 272 in urban tunnels and 209 in extra-urban tunnels.
The injured were 901 and the victims 18.
The aim of the meeting was to compare the different skills on the subject, with a particular focus on the activity of the fire brigade, which has the task of supervising the fire prevention measures in road tunnels with a length of more than 500 meters and in railways that exceed two kilometers.
An activity, recalled the head of the Corps
Guido Parisi
, which brings to mind 24 May 1999, when "a commission of inquiry was set up following the fire in the Mont Blanc tunnel which had occurred two months earlier".
"I was also a part of that Commission - he added - and the works produced 41 recommendations for the reopening of the tunnel,
"The State's response - underlined the head of the Department
Laura Lega
in her speech - is a team response, each with their own responsibilities, which goes in a single direction, that of guaranteeing safety for all. The tunnels are an element of risk in which it is difficult to operate.
Zero risk does not exist but it must not become an alibi, we must put in place important prevention measures, through joint training, data exchange, use of new technologies". According to the Undersecretary of the Interior Emanuele Prisco "a good
job
of team among all the institutions, without neglecting the attention on prevention and safety.
And it is on this that the Government must undertake to invest". "We must continue to work on prevention, training and safety - concluded the Deputy Minister of Transport Galeazzo Bignami - without being satisfied with the results, especially as regards tunnels where the risk the danger are induced by the environment itself.