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With 128 people still missing after a Swiss road tunnel fire that has left 11 confirmed dead so far, rescuers are aiming to finally reach the spot where a truck crash two days ago sparked the blaze.
There could be anywhere between 10 and 40 charred and crushed vehicles at the heart of the disaster, police say, some 1.5 km from the southern end of the Gotthard tunnel.
A stretch of it collapsed in Wednesday's inferno (local time) and officials have warned that the Alpine link could be cut for months, severing a major artery linking Italy to northern Europe.
"It is a true vision of hell," Swiss President Moritz Leuenberger after visiting the town of Airolo at the southern exit. So choking were the fumes that some of those confirmed dead had been overcome just metres from safety.
Officials admitted the figure for the missing was based on a tally of reports from worried friends and relatives and could be inflated by multiple calls from the overly anxious.
First the intense heat and smoke and then the threat of further cave-ins along the 17-km tunnel kept emergency workers away from the spot where two trucks, one carrying a load of tyres, collided head-on.
But as the heat abated, officials said, props would be placed under the roof on Friday to let rescue teams get to work.
"The security of the rescue workers must be the priority," said local member of parliament Marco Borradori.
Officials warned it could be months before the Gotthard can be reopened, compounding transport problems Italy already faced due to the closure of another tunnel through the Alps - Mont Blanc - shut since 1999 due to another horrific accident.
List of missing "chaotic"
Police said that 128 people were reported to be still missing - up from a figure of 80 given earlier on Thursday (local time) - but they added that the number could be inflated by anxious relatives ringing more than one emergency service.
"When it comes to the number of missing, the situation is chaotic," said Romano Piazzini, police chief in the canton of Ticino on the Italian border.
The disaster piled more tragedy on a year of woe that has shaken Swiss perceptions of their nation as a haven of tranquillity in an uncertain world.
The country is still smarting from this month's spectacular collapse of flag carrier airline Swissair under a mountain of debt, while September saw its worst mass murder when a crazed gunman mowed down 14 people in the local legislature at Zug.
Police chief Piazzini said an investigation into the cause of the accident could take a week, with a further week needed to remove rubble and wreckage before repairs could start: "It might be possible to start the repair work in mid-November but it is not possible to say when it will reopen."
President Leuenberger said it could be months before the Gotthard was reopened even for cars, with trucks taking longer to return. He urged Switzerland's neighbours to look for alternative transit links.
For Italy, though, the economic cost is likely to be high, transport experts said. The Mont Blanc route to France was due to reopen by the end of this year but no date has yet been set.
This latest accident came two-and-a-half years after flames engulfed the Mont Blanc tunnel when a truckload of flour and margarine caught fire.
Some 30 vehicles were destroyed and the official death toll is put variously at 39 or 40.
© Reuters
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