Eurostar passengers look for alternative routes

Travellers to France face a weekend of chaos after a fire in the Channel tunnel that forced the suspension of train services for a second day today.

Although British and French firefighters who battled the 1000C fire through the night had brought the main blaze under control by lunchtime, the disruption was expected to cause severe delays for travellers and hauliers for at least a month.

The Eurotunnel chairman said today that it could be several weeks before a full service is restored to the main cross-Channel route. The fire, seven miles from the French coast, broke out yesterday afternoon.

Eurotunnel services have been cancelled and Eurostar passengers are being warned that no trains are expected to run today. It is unclear whether trains will be running at all over the weekend. If trains do resume they will be operating on a reduced service.

Neither Eurostar, which runs the trains, nor Eurotunnel, which operates the tunnel, has the final say on re-opening the route – that decision will be made by the French and British governments.

Dominique Bussereau, France’s transportation minister, said this morning that she could not speculate on how long the tunnel would be closed to traffic, saying “we first have to put out the fire”.

Thirty-two passengers travelling on a freight service yesterday were evacuated after a fire broke out on one of their vehicles. Seven people were treated for smoke inhalation and minor injuries. The French Interior Ministry was reported as saying that the vehicle was carrying phenol, a toxic, flammable product.

One passenger told French radio this morning: "A truck was on fire and there was a series of explosions. There were about 20. Everything was exploding around us -- tyres, fuel tanks and then there was this smoke which stopped us seeing and breathing properly."

Jacques Gounon, chairman of Eurotunnel, said this morning: “I think, without making any promise, that the service could get back to half-capacity during the day.”

He said the north tunnel where a freight shuttle caught fire would be closed for several weeks, but that a service in both directions could be running through a single tunnel by this weekend.

“By luck there is the south tunnel which is absolutely intact,” Mr Gounon added.

A full investigation will have to be carried out on the status of the south tunnel before any restoration of service can be considered.

The tunnel carries Eurostar express trains between London, Paris and Brussels, as well as freight and passenger shuttles between Folkestone and Calais. About 50 Eurostar services run between London and Europe each day, carrying nearly 38,000 passengers if full.

The closure has had a knock-on effect on the roads in Kent, as vehicles and hauliers travelling to the continent have stacked up behind the tunnel. Kent police initiated "Operation Stack" last night to deal with huge tailbacks forming rapidly behind the terminal at Folkstone.

Police have closed the coast-bound section of the M20 to provide room for more than 3,000 vehicles waiting to cross the Channel. Motorists were being diverted onto neighbouring roads.

The tunnel, which is 31 miles long, lies an average of 40 metres below the seabed of the Channel. Fire closed the tunnel in 1996 when a blaze broke out on a truck on a late-night shuttle train, causing one of the two main tunnels to be closed for a month and freight traffic to be halted for seven months. In August 2006, there was another blaze on a truck, but there was no serious damage done.

Eight million passengers a year travel through the tunnel, the largest inter-capital rail service in the world.

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