People have been evacuated from a broken-down Eurostar train in northern France after waiting nearly four hours for help, passengers have told the BBC. Those on board said they were stranded without air conditioning or working toilets before emergency services and local rescue teams arrived to hand out water. James Grierson was evacuated alongside a number of “very frustrated” passengers. They are now boarding a new train to complete their journey to London, he said. Eurostar said the train had come to a standstill due to a power failure and a rescue train had been “promptly dispatched” to carry out a “complex transfer operation”.
Passengers had left Brussels at 08:52 local time (07:52 BST) and were due to arrive at London St Pancras International at 09:57 BST. But the expected journey time of just over two hours has now stretched to more than eight. A power failure between Lille and Calais left the train with no onboard electricity, Eurostar said in a statement. Lidia Aviles, 38, from Brussels, said passengers were not allowed to leave the train for hours due to security concerns regarding people standing near the rails. “Toilets were not working. This is terrible, especially for babies and elderly people,” she said.
Pictures from the scene showed dozens of people stood outside the stationary train, along with rescuers in high-vis jackets – one carrying an armful of bottled water. Several passengers messaged Eurostar on X, complaining of no air conditioning, overflowing toilets and a lack of updates. The rail operator has apologised and offered affected customers a full cash refund. By 16:45 local time, a replacement train had arrived. Ms Aviles said she had boarded the train, but the “evacuation process” was ongoing. Mr Grierson said he expected the process to “take a while” as offloading the first train had taken two hours. Eurostar said the transfer to the new train was “taking longer than anticipated” and thanked customers for their patience and cooperation.
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