'This could have been a horrific incident': Ken Skates on the Conwy Tunnel fire

Wales Online

15 hours ago

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Ken Skates paid a visit to the Conwy Tunnel today (Sunday) to see the work that had been done to get it reopened, after it was shut following a crane lorry fire on Thursday.
The tunnel fully reopened today, after a contraflow was put in place, following Thursday's blaze, which saw people instructed to leave their vehicles and walk out, as acrid black smoke billowed out.
Mr Skates, Welsh Government Cabinet Secretary for North Wales and Transport said "This could have been a horrific incident," but said the safety systems in place had done their job.
"The effort by the team has been quite phenomenal to get it open again in such a short space of time," he said. "We were under promising and the team have now over-delivered, so I'm really grateful to them.
Commenting on the safety of the tunnel Mr Skates said: "There are going to be some armchair analsysts who will say that things should be done slightly differently, or different measures should be implemented and incorporated into the tunnel.
"But a lot of the learning and measures date back to the aftermath of the Mont Blanc Tunnel disaster., when there was huge loss of life, after a terrible fire.
(Image: North Wales Fire and Rescue Service)
"Regulations were introduced through European directives and then they were adopted by the UK when we left. As a result of that, regular rehearsals of events and incidents such as this have to take place - standards that have to be meet. Just two months ago, an exercise was undertaken, by multiple agencies and it was precisely to address the sort of incident that took place on Thursday.
"It's that sort of planning that is so vitally important to ensuring that there is no loss of life and no injuries. This could have been a horrific incident, but instead, because of the planning and the preparations and the ventilation systems in place in the tunnel - nobody was injured, nobody was killed. and the public were able to be evacuated without too much anxiety or stress."
(Image: Marcus Copeland)
Mr Skates said there are some tunnels that have sprinklers, but they are not necessarlily required. "They may cool the tunnel," Mr Skates said: "But they don't deal with the fundamental cause of the blaze. That requires emergency services to get in there and deal with it.
"Tunnels have to have the mechanical ventilation system that deals with the air flow and that enables the safe evacuation of people from the tunnel. This is a standard system which is in place in tunnels across Europe, which is proven to work and last week it was proven to work and sprinkler systems are not needed."
Mr Skates said there are further repairs scheduled for the tunnel on Tuesday night.
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