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Train passengers stranded as southern France wildfires halt services

Thousands of passengers were forced to sleep in their trains overnight Saturday after rail services linking Marseille and Nice were halted as a  precautionary measure when weekend wildfires, which left three firefighters and an elderly woman in need of medical treatment, surrounded tracks.

La rédaction de Mediapart

This article is freely available.

More than 3,000 travellers in southern France spent Saturday night camped out in train stations after a wildfire cut off the busy route between Marseille and Nice, reports Radio France Internationale.

Around 1,300 people were stranded in Marseille, 1,700 in Toulon and 370 in Nice after the fire broke out in Aubagne, 20 kilometres (12 miles) east of Marseille, and ripped across the tracks, state railway company SNCF said.

About ten trains were delayed for several hours on one of the busiest weekends of the year, when many holidaymakers return from the Mediterranean coast. Services between Nice and Paris - which are sometimes routed through Marseille - gradually resumed Sunday morning after the fire was brought under control.

With most hotels along the coast full, some of the stranded passengers spent the night on trains in the stations, where the SNCF provided them with food and drink.

Read more of this report from RFI.

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