Beveren tunnel open again, but soon closed again towards Ghent for cleaning works: “A whopper of an evening rush hour”
An accident with trucks in the Beverentunnel, which serves as a diversion route, really turns it into a “hellish evening rush hour”, reports the Flemish Traffic Center . At around 6.45 pm the Beverentunnel could be enlarged again and in between the biggest obstacle has been removed.
At 2.45 pm an accident involving three trucks and a car transport occurred in the Beverentunnel. “That car transport caught fire due to the collision,” says Peter Bruyninckx, statement from the Flemish Traffic Center. “Fortunately, it was quickly extinguished by the fire brigade.”
The tunnel was completely closed off because two of those large vehicles – the other two trucks were able to drive away – were towed away. Bruyninckx calls it a “considerable setback”, because that is the diversion that was used during work on the viaduct in Merksem. “This will be a whopper of a problem for the evening rush hour,” said Bruyninckx.
At around 6:45 p.m., the message followed that the trucks were being picked up and that the tunnel was being reopened. “The trucks have been hoisted and the tunnel has been cleaned and subjected to a controlled inspection,” says Bruyninckx. “This means that the diversion route for the work on the viaduct in Merksem has been cleared again. Traffic coming from Knokke and Zelzate via the E34 can rejoin the R2 at the interchange in Beveren.”
In the meantime, the files on the Ring and in the rest of Antwerp have gradually been resolved.
Beverentunnel closed again tonight
The Beverentunnel has been open again since 6.45 pm, it will close again later tonight in the direction of Ghent. The accident involving trucks took place in the tunnel towards the Netherlands, but fire extinguishing water from the incident has yet to be removed from the tunnel towards Ghent. The tunnel will be closed for several hours after the evening rush hour.