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More Channel Tunnel traffic chaos after electricity outage Sunday

Following a fire on Saturday caused severe disruption to Eurostar and Shuttle traffic, both Channel tunnels were closed on Sunday by the outage.

La rédaction de Mediapart

This article is freely available.

Eurostar passengers have been hit with fresh problems as the service attempted to get back to normal after a fire left thousands stranded on either side of the Channel, reports The Telegraph.

Six Eurostar trains from London were cancelled on Sunday afternoon after a separate power supply problem closed both tunnels for two hours in the morning. One tunnel will remain closed all day due to the problem unrelated to Saturday's chaotic scenes.

People booked on these services were urged to postpone their travel and rebook for another day.

The firm "strongly advised" passengers not to go to St Pancras, which is Eurostar's London terminus, "unless they have a booking for a train that is scheduled to run".

It said it would provide an update on if trains are likely to be affected on Monday by Sunday night.

A spokesman said: "We are sorry for the inconvenience that passengers have experienced."

All passenger trains and the Eurotunnel Le Shuttle car service were halted after the vehicle caught ablaze at the French end of the underground railway's south tunnel on Saturday.

Services resumed at 2.45am on Sunday, but Eurostar only plans to run a full service "for passengers who have an existing reservation for this date".

Trains were expected to be delayed by up to an hour because of only one tunnel being open.

A Eurostar spokesman said: "One of the two tunnels, however, remains closed all day. In addition, Eurotunnel experienced new power supply problems this morning, which meant that both tunnels were again closed for two hours."

Large queues built up at St Pancras station on Saturday as services were cancelled following the fire and at least 26 trains were returned to their original destinations.

Similar scenes were reported in Paris, with many holidaymakers forced to look for alternative transport or hotels.

Read more of this report from The Telegraph.