No lights inside Eastern Freeway Tunnel for almost a week. Pic/Shadab Khan
According to commuters, streetlights before the 580m long tunnel begins from the Wadala-end are also not functioning, making the entire stretch prone to accidents.
Navi Mumbai resident Sahil Shah, who regularly takes the freeway to work, said, “I travel very late in the night after work and it becomes very risky to navigate the freeway because none of the lights on that stretch have been working for at least the past seven days. It’s pitch dark inside and even the ventilation system doesn’t seem to be working, as it’s really stuffy inside the tunnel. The problem is that even driving slow inside a tunnel is dangerous, but it’s so dark one needs to tread carefully.”
The blame game
On being contacted, MMRDA, however, said the BMC is responsible for fixing lights on the freeway. MMRDA joint project director Dilip Kawatkar said, “We have handed over the entire eastern freeway project to the BMC, but even if it under the Defect Liability Period, it is BMC’s duty to follow-up with the contractor.”
Speaking to mid-day on condition of anonymity, a senior civic official from the BMC said, “Yes, there are some technical issues with the lights on the eastern freeway. The civic body has requested the service providers (Reliance Energy) to get the problem fixed at the earliest.”
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14 lanes, 12-km bypass to speed up Mumbai-Pune expressway traffic ...
timesofindia.indiatimes.com › City
www.mace.manchester.ac.uk
The
roadway slab and the ducts beneath are reinforced concrete structures.
However, the 0.5 m thick tunnel lining was pure concrete without
reinforcement.
Case Studies: Historical Fires: Channel Tunnel Fire, France/UK;
Fire Safety Design Considerations of Road Tunnels
Posted on Thursday, July 24th, 2014
Photo credit: http://www.bbc.co.uk
We recently published a guest post about emergency evacuations from our colleagues at Graphic Packaging that mentioned the Mont Blanc tragic tunnel fire.
Shortly after we published the blog, I had the opportunity to attend an
SFPE webinar that focused on the fire protection design considerations
of road tunnels, and I thought I would share a few highlights.
The webinar was presented by David
Barber, Global Fire Engineering Leader, with Arup in the Australian
Region. Mr. Barber began the webinar by stressing that fire safety is
often a complex problem in tunnels and that the goals of fire safety
design are twofold:
- Prevention of fires from occurring in the first place; and
- Prevention of fires that do occur from escalating to a major event
From 1995 to 2006, over 300 lives have
been lost in tunnel fires. In addition to the Mont Blanc fire, where 39
lives were lost, here are a few other fatal tunnel fires that occurred between the years of 1995 and 2006:
Year
|
Tunnel
|
Casualties
|
| 1996 | Isola delle Femmine (Italy) | 5 fatalities; 20 injured |
| 1999 | Tauren (Austria) | 12 fatalities; 40 injured |
| 2001 | Gleinalm (Austria) | 5 fatalities; 4 injured |
| 2001 | St. Gotthard (Switzerland) | 11 fatalities |
| 2006 | Viamala Tunnel (Switzerland) | 9 fatalities; 6 injured |
These unfortunate accidents resulted in
fundamental changes in tunnel design and have allowed fire protection
engineers to play a more significant role in the entire design process.
By incorporating a greater use of performance-based design solutions and
risk-based analysis, fire protection engineers can help achieve tunnel
design goals that often include the reduction in the likelihood of
accidents and fires, the reduction of evacuation time, provisions for
firefighter and emergency medical services (EMS) intervention, and
provisions for business continuity.
What Factors Should Be Considered in the Fire Protection Design of Road Tunnels
When designing fire protection solutions for road tunnels, Mr. Barber suggests asking the following questions:
- What are the life safety goals and other objectives?
- Which code(s) provides the framework?
- Can a risk-based approach be used?
- What is the acceptable level of safety performance?
- How will the design be proven safe?
In addition, fire protection design for
tunnels should not only focus on the prevention of fires, but also on
the evacuation of occupants. Self-evacuation of occupants is critical
for life safety. Designs must include a robust solution for
self-evacuation that can include: spacing between exit doors; emergency
lane width; auto detection systems; alerting through overhead signage,
texts, and/or radio; directional distance signs to exits; clear exit
signs; lighting; help points; emergency phones; smoke control; and
suppression systems.
Smoke hazard management and smoke
control systems play a huge role in offering tenable conditions for
occupants to evacuate safely by providing positive airflow that limits
the spread of smoke and allows for the extraction of smoke and heat.
Tools like Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) models can be used during
the design phase to better understand options for ventilation control
and smoke hazard management, as well as to better determine critical
velocity.
What about Fire Suppression Systems in Road Tunnels?
While fire suppression systems have been
undoubtedly effective and efficient in the built environment, there are
concerns when it comes to their use in road tunnels. According to
Andreas Haggkvist in an article in Fire Protection Engineering,
those concerns include: hindering the evacuation of occupants by the
generation of steam that may cause injuries; difficulty in suppressing a
fire that starts in an engine; and the potential for petroleum fires to
continue to produce combustible gases after being extinguished that can
create an explosive environment.
Despite these concerns, newer approaches
to fire protection design are taking advantage of the use of
suppression systems to protect the structural performance of road
tunnels. Mr. Barber sited the Burnley Tunnel fire in 2007, where the
deluge system activated instantly; helping firefighters to keep the fire
under control and minimize structural damage, which allowed for the
tunnel to reopen four days after the fire.
The Road to the Future
While road tunnel design has improved
and evolved throughout the years, fire protection engineers still have a
lot of work to do. Mr. Barber concluded that further testing is needed,
including large scale testing, in regards to suppression systems,
structural protection, occupant egress, and communication and control
methodologies, and the influence of these factors on design strategies.
By Jeff Harrington, CEO and Founder of Harrington Group, Inc.
news.bbc.co.uk
World: Europe Tunnel fire kills 30. Charred wreckage: All that remains of vehicles caught in the blaze
emseal.com
The Mont Blanc tunnel fire in Europe killed 39.
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