14 people injured in English Tunnel fire

The Eurostar departs Waterloo station near the London Eye to travel the 74km from Britain to France. A single lorry caught fire on a train in the Channel Tunnel.

PARIS // Six people suffered from smoke inhalation and eight were injured in the fire that broke out on a train in the Channel Tunnel today, local authorities said. "The 14 injured have been taken to a service tunnel and are being evacuated to hospitals," said Francois Malhance, the director of the local prefect's office. Rescue officials had earlier said 12 people suffered from smoke inhalation. Firefighters quickly extinguished the blaze after it broke out about 11km from the French side, said a spokesman for Eurotunnel, the company that operates the tunnel. The spokesman was not authorized to be publicly named.

The shuttle train was carrying 32 people when the fire broke out just before 4pm local time, the spokesman said. Most were lorry drivers accompanying their vehicles, and all were evacuated safely. France's rail operator SNCF said the fire erupted on a single lorry carried by the train, and recommended that travellers postpone their travel plans through the tunnel until tomorrow. Traffic was suspended five minutes after the fire broke out, the official said. Firefighters were still examining the site this afternoon.

The regional administration office in Calais on the French coast, which was overseeing the aftermath of the fire, said no cause for the fire had yet been determined. Fires have broken out in the past on the undersea tunnel, which opened for commercial traffic in 1994, but they are rare. In Aug 2006, the tunnel was closed for several hours after a fire broke out on a lorry loaded onto a freight train. No one was hurt. A larger fire broke out aboard a train carrying heavy good vehicles through in the tunnel on Nov 18, 1996. No one was killed but several people were injured and a large stretch of the tunnel was damaged. The fire led to new safety precautions for trains using the tunnel.

*AP