A fire drill was held at the Saigon River Tunnel in Ho Chi Minh City on Sunday morning with nearly 1,300 people and 88 vehicles being mobilized.

The hypothetical situation was that a 30-seater coach suddenly broke down and stopped while running inside the tunnel from District 1 to Thu Duc City.

At the time, a cargo truck failed to stop and collided with the coach at the back.

The driver of a four-seater car also failed to reduce the speed of the vehicle, turned to the motorbike lane on its right, and hit a motorbike. The collision made the motorbike break down.

Gasoline leaked out from the motorbike, which, together with sparks, caused the vehicle to burst into flames inside the Saigon River Tunnel.

Many motorbikes also fell as they braked suddenly, resulting in congestion stretching nearly two kilometers.

The pile-up injured nine people, while many others panicked and tried to find a way out.

Upon receiving the news, firefighters rushed to the scene to put out the fire and save the people stuck inside the vehicles.

The Saigon River Tunnel is 1.49 kilometers long, 33 meters wide, and nine meters high with six lanes.

The tunnel was opened to traffic in 2011, becoming the longest and most modern river tunnel in Southeast Asia then, Tien Phong (Vanguard) newspaper reported.

Over 40,000 autos and trucks and 200,000 motorbikes pass through the tunnel per day.

With this traffic volume, the risk of traffic accidents and fires is huge.

Therefore, fire prevention and fighting and traffic safety are of high priority, Nguoi Lao Dong (Laborer) newspaper cited Colonel Huynh Quang Tam, head of the Ho Chi Minh City Firefighting Police, as saying.

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