A blaze erupted in a tunnel near Paris, trapping 19 workers and seriously injuring one fireman, firefighters said on Wednesday.
The fire began about a mile (about 1.5 km) from the entrance of a motorway tunnel under construction west of Paris late on Tuesday.
"The 19 workers are safe. Firefighters are with them inside the tunnel and we are evacuating them gradually," a fire spokesman said.
"There was a lot of smoke and it seems as though it was a large fire," he said.
The fire appeared to have started when the motor of a train carrying building materials into the tunnel on the A86 motorway in the Hauts-de-Seine region near Versailles exploded, he said.
Two firefighters suffered from smoke inhalation. One was in a serious condition and the other lightly injured.
(China Daily March 6, 2002)
