Hundreds of people practice firefighting and rescue in the Saigon River tunnel

A hypothetical situation where a 2.5-ton truck suddenly shuts down and catches fire after being hit by cars behind it. *Photo: Nghiem Y*

In the hypothetical scenario, a 2.5-ton truck suddenly stopped in the middle of the tunnel. At this time, a 4-seater car from behind crashed straight into the back of the truck. The front of the 4-seater car was deformed, the driver was trapped in the cabin, and the goods on the truck caught fire due to an electrical short circuit.

At the same time, many motorbikes panicked and collided with each other. In 5 minutes, toxic smoke rose up, threatening the lives of the victims. At this time, there were about a dozen cars, trucks, buses and 30 motorbikes behind the car that had an accident. Six people were injured and 35 people were trapped in the tunnel.

Upon receiving the news, the authorities coordinated with the Fire Prevention and Fighting Police to arrive at the scene. *Photo: Nghiem Y*

Responding to the incident, the tunnel management center immediately turned on the alarm, used loudspeakers to notify people trapped in the tunnel to find an exit and deployed on-site forces to put out the fire. The Fire Prevention, Fire Fighting and Rescue Police Department (PC07, Ho Chi Minh City Police) quickly provided support.

In particular, the firefighting force used robotic equipment to put out the fire. At the same time, many other teams also used water hoses and fire retardant chemicals to control the fire after about 10 minutes. At the same time, the 115 emergency center also mobilized doctors and nurses to the scene to provide first aid to the victims and take them to the hospital.

Rescue forces injured people. *Photo: Nghiem Y*

Colonel Tran Van Hieu, Head of PC07, said that according to statistics, every day there are over 55,000 cars and 300,000 motorbikes traveling through the Saigon River Tunnel. Since the tunnel was put into use, there have been about 160 traffic accidents and collisions.

This is one of the city's main arteries, so the force has organized firefighting and rescue drills to perfect the coordination mechanism between forces and quickly handle incidents. "We consider this a real-life situation to form reflexes and quick reactions to minimize damage when incidents occur and improve firefighting skills," said Colonel Tran Van Hieu.

Below are photos of the rehearsal recorded by Hanoi Moi Newspaper reporters.