A French-Italian Alpine tunnel shut down after a 600 Celsius (1,100 Fahrenheit) truck blaze that killed two people will reopen by the end of August, transport ministers of the two countries said on Thursday. The fire occurred on June 4 in the Frejus tunnel that cuts under the Alps just 160 km (100 miles) south of the Mont Blanc tunnel where 39 people died six years ago in another fire. The victims were men from Slovakia and Slovenia. The exact date for the reopening will be set late in July, the office of the French minister, Dominique Perben, said in a statement with his Italian counterpart Pietro Lunardi carried by Reuters. A bilateral commission has been asked to propose safety measures to guarantee security when the tunnel reopens, it added. Firefighters at Frejus took seven hours to extinguish the blaze in the 13-km (8-mile) tunnel and officials said it would take several months before the passage would be reopened. The Frejus tunnel, one of the main road links between France and Italy, connects Lyon and Turin, and runs close to the site of the 2006 Winter Olympics in the Italian Alps. Some 2 million vehicles use the route each year. --SP 2209 Local Time 1909 GMT
