128 listed missing after Swiss tunnel fire

A total of 128 people have been listed as missing after yesterday's fire inside the Gotthard Tunnel, in the Swiss Alps.

A total of 128 people have been listed as missing after yesterday's fire inside the Gotthard Tunnel, in the Swiss Alps.

A fire is still burning more than 24 hours after a lorry crash.

Officials have so far confirmed 10 people - nine men and one woman - died after two trucks collided in the Gotthard tunnel yesterday, setting off a fierce fire which engulfed victims trapped in the narrow 10-mile two-lane tunnel.

"We still have 80 people unaccounted for," Mr Romano Piazzini, head of police in the canton of Ticino, told a news briefing.

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Rescue workers were still battling intense heat in the Gotthard - the world's second longest tunnel - in order to reach the scene of the accident where they expected to resume their search for bodies.

"The fire is now under control on the south side, and police investigators have now gone in," said another police official in Ticino, which borders Italy. "But the infrastructure has been seriously damaged and it is very dangerous in there."

Parts of the tunnel's roof collapsed, burying between 10 and 40 vehicles, police said.

A second fatal accident near another Swiss tunnel today added further misery to road hauliers and motorists.

The accidents effectively cut off Italy's main road links to the north, following the shutdown in 1999 of the Mont Blanc tunnel to France after a fire, also set off by a truck.