For many families, the tunnel remains a burial place because it is where their loved ones, who died in the fire of March 24, 1999, are “buried”.
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The families of the victims of the Mont-Blanc tunnel fire will meet on Saturday March 23 at 4 p.m., for a tribute ceremony, 25 years after the events, reports France Bleu Pays de Savoie. On March 24, 1999, 39 people died in the fire in the Mont-Blanc tunnel linking France to Italy.
On the French side, the families of the victims will meet at the memorial built on the side of the road leading to the tunnel, in Chamonix, in Haute-Savoie. And another meeting is planned for Sunday, on the Italian side.
The bodies were never recovered
For Marie-Ange Chantelot, the president of the association of families of victims of the Mont-Blanc tunnel, who testified to France Bleu Pays de Savoie, “It remains a date that many families do not want to miss (…) they want to be on site, in front of the memorial because it is symbolic for many.”
The fire, which started from a truck, had then lasted more than 50 hours in the 11 kilometer long structure and the heart of the blaze had reached several hundred degrees. “As we have not recovered any bodies at all, for many, this is the place where they died and where they are buried since, in the graves that we all have, there is nothing or almost nothing “she says.
