- London St Pancras station filled with hundreds of passengers waiting to board
- Gare du Nord’s Eurostar area had to be evacuated due to unattended luggage
- Eurostar apologised in a tweet and said affected customers would get refund
- Frustrated travellers vented their anger about the long delays in furious Tweets
Hundreds of Eurostar customers have been caught up in six-hour delays after a power cut and security alert.
Trains were unable to enter the Channel Tunnel and were temporarily suspended, creating long tailbacks at London St Pancras on Sunday.
No sooner had the tunnel reopened at 12.25, there was further chaos when the Gare du Nord’s Eurostar area had to be evacuated due to unattended luggage.
St Pancras International, where hundreds of passengers were delayed following the powercut in the channel tunnel
At 10am Eurostar tweeted: ‘Due to a problem with the overhead power supply in the Eurotunnel, our services are currently stopped at the entrance of the Eurotunnel.’
Delays of one hour were reported by the company at 3.30pm and they apologised to customers who had been affected by the ‘problem with the overhead power supply’.
Footage posted online shows huge crowds of people waiting to board trains.
Meanwhile similar delays at the Gare du Nord were compounded when passengers had to be evacuated due to luggage being left unattended.
Eurostar has said in a tweet that those affected by the travel chaos will be able to claim a full refund.
It said: ‘Our sincere apologies for the severe and ongoing disruption affecting services today. Given anticipated delays are in excess of an hour, passengers will be able to obtain a free-exchange.’]
The Channel Tunnel is an undersea tunnel 31.5 miles long which links southern England and northern France.
Since opening in 1994, it has been used to ferry more than 150 million passengers.
But Eurostar journeys have been plagued by difficulties in recent months, with a third of trains from London to Paris being cancelled in April amid French rails strikes.
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