Eurostar delays as passengers are evacuated
Hundreds of passengers experience heavy delays as they are evacuated from a broken down train in the Channel Tunnel.
Photo by passenger Richard Byrom
A power fault brought a France-bound service to a halt about a quarter of the way through the tunnel and meant that those on board had to walk to another train.
One passenger described hearing the train hit a power line as it travelled through the tunnel.
“We heard this crashing sound and scraping and it had obviously crashed into an object of some sort. The train gradually came to a halt and then there was a moment where we were thinking ‘what happens’,” said Richard Byrom.
He said that staff told the passengers that the train had hit a power line and was immobilised. They were made to wait in a service tunnel, before being transferred to another train to travel to the French side of the tunnel.
“When they evacuated the train, we were all taken to a central point in the carriage, then one of the service tunnels, at which point you had lots of people taking selfies. There was probably a sense of relief that we were moving into a tunnel.
“It was incredibly calm, I was expecting to see people upset. Once we got into the service tunnels, I think people were just relieved,” he added.
Evacuation
And Byrom said that those affected – 382 passengers and four dogs – were held for around four hours, before facing further delays to their onward journeys once they finally arrived in France.
The incident happened at around 7.30am on Monday about 7.5 miles into the 30-mile long tunnel and caused queues at the London terminal in St Pancras station.
“The evacuated passengers are now at the French terminal and are waiting for the affected train to arrive so they can get their cars,” a Eurotunnel spokesman said.
He added: “We are advising people who don’t need to travel today to travel on another day. There are queues building up and travellers should expect delays throughout the day.”
Channel Tunnel high-speed train company Eurostar said it had had to cancel four services today and warned passengers to expect delays to ones that are able to run.
Eurostar told customers: “If travel today is non-essential you can exchange your ticket, free of charge, to another available service within the next four months.”
A spokesman later said he expected services would not return to normal until Tuesday because work would need to be carried out overnight to repair the damage.