CHAOS IN SOLLER

CLOSING the Soller Tunnel to all traffic for two hours yesterday while the largest ever tunnel fire-drill was staged, caused traffic chaos and major tail backs, but emergency service chiefs are convinced the training exercise was well worth it. At 10am, the army staged a head-on collision deep in the tunnel and over 50 members of the emergency services, fire fighters, paramedics, police and the bomb squad, were involved in beating back the flames and toxic fumes to reach the victims trapped in the vehicles involved in the crash and evacuate them to the safety of a special field hospital erected at the mouth of the tunnel or, in the case of the more seriously injured, to hospitals on alert in Palma. The exercise was part of a two-day convention on tunnel fire prevention, which drew to a close in Palma last night, and it is hoped that it has also helped better prepare the emergency services in the event of a fire or major incident in one of the many new road and rail tunnels due to come into operation over the coming months. One of the biggest threats in a tunnel fire is posed by toxic fumes and this was mirrored in yesterday's drill with fire fighters having to wear special breathing apparatus inside the tunnel. Balearic emergency chiefs monitoring the exercise said that they were pleased with how the emergency services coped, especially with the new specialist equipment being tested for the very first time. They said that a number of important lessons that have been learnt will be used to improve and fine tune their accident response plan.