Salang tunnel fire

The Salang tunnel fire occurred on 3 November 1982 in Afghanistan's only road tunnel - the Salang tunnel - during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Details are unclear, but the incident may have been one of the deadliest fires of modern times.

Overview

Very few facts are known about the fire. All information available constitutes little more than hearsay, in part because the Red Army was not inclined to reveal massive losses while at war. Most sources agree that it involved a Red Army convoy travelling south through the tunnel.

There is no firm information about what caused the fire. It is possible that a northbound fuel tanker crashed into a military vehicle; other sources state that a northbound vehicle crashed into a munitions truck. There is speculation that there might have been an attack on the convoy in the tunnel, or that munitions in one of the military vehicles spontaneously combusted. Nothing is known for certain.

What is known is that the Red Army sealed off access to the tunnel either after receiving reports from observers in the tunnel or after seeing smoke coming out of the portals. Many people in the tunnel then suffocated, killed either by fumes from the fire or by carbon monoxide emitted by idling engines. The size of the fire, how many vehicles were involved, and how long it went on for are all unknown.

The casualty figures are also unknown. One source (dated 2001) records that 178 Red Army soldiers and about 800 Afghan civilians were killed, making it the world's deadliest road accident. Others go as high as 2,000. If these figures are the right order of magnitude, this death toll from a fire is matched in the 20th Century only by a fire in Chongqing, China, in 1949 that killed 1,700.

FROM SOVIET MILITARY DATABASE:On 3 November 1982 two military convoys collided in Salang tonnel and made a traffic jam.There were no fire or explosions. 64 soviet soldiers and 112 afghan people were killed by carbon monoxide emitted by idling engines.

On 23 February 1980 another similar accident took lifes of 16 soviet soldiers in Salang tonnel.

Ref: http://www.soldat.ru/book/afganistan/chronic.html (Russian)

See also

* List of road accidents

External links and sources

* [http://esl.fis.edu/students/projects/disaster/salang.htm Summary from Frankfurt International School]
* [http://timelines.ws/20thcent/1982.HTML Casualty figures from 2001 (of unknown accuracy)]
* [http://countrystudies.us/afghanistan/32.htm Tunnel length and altitude]
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1772840.stm BBC News, Inside the Salang tunnel, 2002]
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/2181503.stm BBC News, Report on the state of the Salang tunnel, 2002]