Airolo - The Gotthard tunnel through the Swiss Alps reopened to car traffic yesterday, nearly two months after a crash that killed 11 people and severed the key north-south transit artery.
Environmentalists condemned the rush to open the 17-km tunnel, despite new measures to prevent another fatal blaze such as the one on October 24th, when two trucks crashed head-on and started an inferno.
Trucks are to start passing through today, escaping costly circuitous alternatives to the direct Gotthard, which links northern Europe to southern Switzerland and Italy. New safety rules state trucks must now stay 150 metres apart and travel in alternate one-way traffic.