Skip to footer

Fire shuts down English Channel tunnel Saturday

A fire in a truck being transported through the Channel Tunnel shut down all travel between France and England Saturday. 

|
(AP Photo/Str)
A German ICE high speed train enters the English Channel tunnel that links France to Britain in 2010 in Coquelles, northern France. A fire Saturday shut down the tunnel.
  • By Staff Associated Press

| London

A fire in a truck being transported through the Channel Tunnel triggered an alarm which led to suspension of all passenger and freight rail services between Britain and France on Saturday, police said. No injuries were reported.

Kent Police said the fire was at the French end of the tunnel.

Eurostar said rail passenger services between Britain and France were suspended after smoke was detected in the tunnel beneath the English channel. Tunnel operator Eurotunnel said in a statement that a C02 alarm went off just before midday and that it was investigating the cause.

We are sorry but we are unable to run any further trains today because Eurotunnel has been closed due to smoke detected in the north tunnel. If you were planning to travel today, we advise you to postpone your journey and not to come to the station. 

On its twitter account Eurostar has been advising passengers on refunds, and that service may not be restored until this evening.

Sky News reported that the Cross-Channel car service Le Shuttle tweeted: "CO2 detectors have been activated in one tunnel; we are currently awaiting feedback from teams in Tunnel. Further info to follow."

In March, hundreds of Eurostar passengers were delayed after a lightning strike triggered a fire in a building close to the entrance to the tunnel in Kent.

Although there was no damage to the track, four trains in and out of England were affected.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Fire shuts down English Channel tunnel Saturday
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Latest-News-Wires/2015/0117/Fire-shuts-down-English-Channel-tunnel-Saturday
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe