A nightmare New Year’s Eve for those who had decided to spend the holidays outside London this year and for the many tourists in the city who wanted to travel by train: the wave of bad weather with heavy rain caused the flooding of two tunnels under the Thames, blocking all Eurostar departures and arrivals in the British capital. The rail service, which runs trains from London to Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam, canceled all 41 trains, thus stranding approximately 30,000 passengers on one of the busiest weekends of the year.
“Due to an infrastructure problem on the high-speed line, we are forced to cancel all trains to and from London,” Eurostar wrote on its website. The flooding of the tunnel between Saint Pancras, the departure and arrival station of trains in the British capital, and Ebbsfleet, in the south-east of England, “has not improved and train services are not able to operate”, he explained .
The company says it is “extremely sorry” and customers are invited to visit the website to “find out what compensation they are entitled to” and make any changes. In the video published on the social media accounts of the Southeastern railway company, water can be seen pouring into a tunnel intended for the passage of high-speed trains, near the Ebbsfleet international station, in Kent, and completely submerging the tracks.
Video England, the flooding of the Eurostar train tunnel
Eurostar has announced that tomorrow, 31 December, all trains scheduled after the interruption will be operational. “We can confirm that we will follow the scheduled timetable. Our stations will be extremely busy,” the company said on X.
The group also announced that Network Rail (the British company that manages the railway infrastructure) is updating in real time on the situation and will be in direct contact with customers who need to travel. The technicians worked all day to remove the “unprecedented” water, but even if the level is reducing, it is not yet known whether services will resume on Sunday 31st.
News that threw passengers into despair, many of whom burst into tears. Among them, Christina David, 25, and Georgina Benyamin, 26, from Sydney who, after traveling for three weeks in Europe on a limited budget, had planned their last stop in Paris, where they hoped to ring in the New Year in an expensive hotel with a view of the Eiffel Tower before returning home. “We don’t know where to go, we have nowhere to stay,” Christina told the BBC online.
Similar stories have also reached the other side of the Channel. Curt Downs, his wife Megan and their one-year-old son were among hundreds of people stranded at Paris’ Gare Du Nord station after their train was cancelled. Downs said the family spent their time looking for ferries, rental cars and flights back to the UK. They finally found a high-priced flight from Paris to Manchester.
“We understand how frustrating this is for passengers and we apologize for the inconvenience caused at such an important time of year,” Eurostar said. While the British weather service has issued a warning for rain, snow and ice in much of the country, complicating the situation. It is the second time in 10 days that serious disruptions have occurred to Eurostar services: on 21 December, just before Christmas, passengers had already had to face numerous train cancellations due to a surprise strike that had paralyzed the Channel Tunnel.
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2023-12-30 22:53:00
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