A fire in the Channel Tunnel was finally put out today almost 20 hours after it took hold on a freight train.
Eurotunnel, which manages the undersea link, said its technicians were assessing the status of the two main tunnels that connect Britain with France, and that passenger services might resume later in the day
"We need around six to eight hours to make sure that everything is safe," Eurotunnel's CEO Jacques Gounon told French radio. "Unless there are unexpected surprises, we are looking at a resumption of service by the end of the day."
However, Eurostar, which operates the cross-Channel trains, told passengers it did not expect to be back in business on Friday. Anyone holding tickets for weekend trains should consult its www.eurostar.com website, it said.
Magistrates have opened an investigation into the fire, which officials think began on a lorry loaded on the shuttle. No one was killed in the fire, which turned one of the two tunnel shafts into an inferno, with temperatures reaching 1,000 degrees Celsius.
About 40,000 people a day use the tunnel to travel between Britain and continental Europe, and thousands of passengers were left stranded by the incident.
Mr Gounon said there was "nothing to indicate" the fire was started deliberately, adding that the blaze took hold some 40 km (25 miles) into the 51km tunnel, towards the French end.
He said some truck drivers who had been travelling in a sealed compartment on the shuttle smashed windows to escape.
They should have waited until ventilation systems had removed toxic smoke before looking to reach the service tunnel, he added. Six people were taken to hospital after inhaling the fumes and eight others suffered cuts and bruises.
Truck drivers caught up in the blaze said they had felt trapped in the stranded train.
Opened in 1994, the Channel Tunnel is the longest undersea subway in the world. There have been two previous fires in the tunnel, both involving lorries being transported on trains, with a 1996 fire halting freight traffic for seven months.
Reuters