Tunnel tragedy missing list cut

Disaster scene: Wreckage inside the Gotthard tunnel

AIROLO, Switzerland (CNN) -- Swiss authorities are confident that the death toll in the Gotthard tunnel fire disaster will not rise drastically despite 70 people still listed as missing.

The number missing has dropped from a high of 200 and officials believe most of those on the list were merely thought to be in the area of the Gotthard tunnel rather than actually inside it when the crash happened.

Eleven people have been confirmed killed in the tunnel fire which broke out after a crash between two lorries.

Construction teams are trying to keep the ceiling of the narrow, two-lane tunnel from collapsing and are working their way toward the exact location of the crash.

Police said on Saturday they believe it will be Tuesday before special identification teams can begin the search for possible victims.

MORE STORIES Experts demand tunnel safety push  Timeline: Past tunnel disasters    RESOURCES Picture gallery: Swiss disaster

Airolo police said the dead include 10 men and one woman -- four Germans, two French and one person each from Italy and Switzerland. Three bodies have not been identified.

Fire crews have been able to extinguish the fire with special firefighting machines, but extremely high temperatures in the tunnel did considerable damage to the ceiling.

A 300-meter stretch of the 10-mile tunnel's roof has collapsed and engineers are concerned about additional sections collapsing.

Officials said the tunnel could remain closed for weeks, because of the extensive damage.

Twenty-three vehicles are still in the tunnel, police said Friday, including several cars and trucks.

The official number of missing has gone up and down, starting at 200 Wednesday evening, dropping to 80 on Thursday morning, rising to 140 Thursday night and falling to 120 by Friday morning. And then down again to 70 on Saturday.

The number is based on phone calls from relatives all over Europe of people who might travelled through the tunnel.

During the height of the fire, the temperatures soared above 1,000 degrees Celsius (1,800 degrees Fahrenheit), and it had not cooled enough to allow firefighters to reach many vehicles until nearly 24 hours after the accident in the tunnel.

The high temperatures fused cars and trucks into a mass of molten metal.

The continued extreme heat and the ceiling collapse combined to make rescue efforts difficult.

Poisonous gases killed several people in their cars, and others as they tried to reach safety shelters, said Benno Buehlemann, a fire chief in the town of Goeschenen at the tunnel's northern end.

"Suddenly there was smoke, and I couldn't see anything," said Marco Frischknecht, a truck driver interviewed by Swiss television in his hospital bed. I tried to reverse, but there were so many people I had to give up."

Completed in 1980, the Gotthard tunnel is one of the busiest north-south links in the Alps but has only one lane in each direction.

Mont Blanc fire killed 39 people in 1999

It was the longest road tunnel in the world when it was built. Even now, only Norway's Laerdal tunnel is longer.

Swiss President Moritz Leuenberger said "many people were able to escape," thanks to the ventilation system and emergency exits and shelters every 250 meters.

Leuenberger, who also is transportation minister in charge of Switzerland's tunnel system, said the security features in the crowded Gotthard averted a much worse death toll.

But the tragedy is prompting many European road experts to call for urgent safety improvements in tunnels across Europe, including adding second tunnels so traffic in each would go in only one direction.

Meanwhile residents living near the scene of another Alps tunnel tragedy have criticised a plan to allow lorries back into the tunnel.

France and Italy announced on Friday the Mont Blanc tunnel would be open to cars from December 15 and for trucks early in the new year.

But Michel Charlet, mayor of the town of Chamonix on the French side of the 11 km (seven-mile) tunnel, told Reuters news agency the decision was "scandalous."

And Eric Lanoe, head of the French pressure group Reagir which wants to keep trucks out of the Alps, said: "It's incredible that people can decide things like this,.

Trucks will only be allowed to travel one-way through the tunnel. Trucks driving in the other direction will have to use the Frejus tunnel, about 90 km (55 miles) south.

The tunnel under Europe's highest mountain has been closed since March 1999 when 39 people died after a Belgian truck burst into flames halfway through the tunnel.