Travelers recount a ‘frightening’ evacuation from submerged tunnel

Commuters journeying from France to England were evacuated from a Eurotunnel train beneath the English Channel on Tuesday and left stranded for several hours afterwards.

'A train has stalled in the tunnel, and we are working to move passengers to a separate shuttle via the service tunnel, returning them to our Folkestone terminal,' Eurotunnel tweeted late Tuesday UK time. 'We deeply apologize for the inconvenience caused.'

Eurotunnel Le Shuttle operates trains that transport passengers and freight vehicles through a tunnel connecting England and France.

The disruption affected the 3:50 p.m. service from Calais, France, to Folkestone, England, which was carrying hundreds of passengers and several dogs, according to the PA Media news agency.

Passenger Michael Harrison shared his unsettling experience with PA.

'We boarded the 3:50 pm train, and about 10 minutes in, the lights went out, and the train stalled. They informed us they were investigating an issue with the wheels,' he explained.

'It took around 90 minutes for them to check and find nothing. They reset the system and tried again for five minutes,' Harrison continued. 'The issue recurred, so we waited another few hours before they decided to evacuate us onto another train, unable to pinpoint any fault.'

Passengers were then escorted through the emergency link tunnel to the service tunnel, walking for about 10 minutes before reaching another train, Harrison told PA.

Additional problems with the replacement train meant that passengers finally arrived in the UK six hours after they initially boarded, he added.

Typically, the Eurotunnel Le Shuttle service takes 35 minutes to travel between Folkestone and Calais.

A second passenger told PA, 'Several people were panicking while stuck in the service tunnel—it’s an eerie place. We were trapped down there for at least five hours.'

Fellow traveler Kate Scott noted that the temperatures in the tunnel became a concern during the ordeal.

'It was unbearably hot, with no air conditioning. They handed out water, but we had no idea what was happening,' she said.

Sarah Fellows, 37, shared with PA that 'the service tunnel was absolutely terrifying.'

'It felt like a scene from a disaster movie. You were just walking into the unknown, not understanding what was going on. We were all stuck in this long queue under the sea,' she explained.

'There was a woman crying in the tunnel and another woman having a panic attack, traveling alone,' Fellows added. 'They were expecting elderly people to walk for a mile through a tunnel under the sea.'

'At one point, I started panicking, and Border Force told us that the tunnel had only been evacuated once in the last 17 years, though not recently,' she said.

The problem also caused delays for subsequent services.

'Due to the earlier train malfunction, we recommend avoiding travel to the terminal tonight,' Eurotunnel tweeted late Tuesday. 'Please plan to arrive after 6am tomorrow.'

By Wednesday morning, the company confirmed that trains were running again. 'After yesterday’s incident, services have returned to normal,' they tweeted.

Dinogo has reached out to Eurotunnel for further details regarding the incident.

The Channel Tunnel transformed travel between the UK and mainland Europe when it opened in May 1994, significantly shortening the journey compared to the ferry route.

The idea had been discussed for over 180 years before British and French workers finally broke ground and began tunneling toward each other in 1988.

It took 13,000 workers six years to complete the 31.4-mile tunnel, with 2 miles submerged underwater, making it the longest tunnel of its kind in the world.