At least 40 people were hospitalized Thursday in Rio de Janeiro after being injured or poisoned by smoke and panic caused by a burning truck inside a tunnel on the Yellow Line, one of the main roads in the Brazilian city. At least one person is in serious condition, according to the city’s health department.
ABOUT The truck, a beverage transport vehicle, began to burn for reasons yet to be determined while driving through a tunnel known as the Kowanka Tunnel, and thick layers of smoke quickly enveloped the entire region, especially inside this road equipment. Drivers panicked, chaos reigned as it was impossible to see what was ahead, either on the road where the accident occurred or on the other side, and everything came to a standstill.
Some people began to feel ill due to inhaling large amounts of smoke and carbon monoxide. They immediately became desperate and abandoned their cars in the tunnel, running to call for help. In this desperate rush without visibility, in addition to those who felt ill due to their respiratory tract, several people were injured by falling or colliding with other people or vehicles.
Victims of the truck fire have been admitted to at least four major hospitals in the city. Among them are Lourenço Jorge in Barra da Tijuca, Albert Schweitzer in Realengo, both in the west of the city, Salgado Filho in Meier in the north and Miguel Couto in Gávea in the south. But many more people, not yet accounted for, are estimated to have been injured but did not require hospitalization by firefighters or sought medical care on their own.
Since the Linha Amarela, the expressway that connects the city center to the western zone, is one of Rio de Janeiro’s main road corridors, there were gridlocks in several areas as far as the eye could see, further disrupting the morning for locals. Traffic in the tunnel and on the Yellow Line was allowed back up shortly after 11 a.m. local time and 3 p.m. in Lisbon, but cars abandoned by people who fled the fire, many of whom are still in hospitals, continued to snarl traffic.