What began as an ordinary rail trip under the English Channel turned into pure claustrophobia nightmare fuel on Tuesday when a train came to a stop and passengers were left stranded for hours in a narrow concrete pipe under the seabed.
Alarms sounded on the Eurotunnel Le Shuttle service from Calais in northern France to Folkestone in south England at around 3:50 p.m., and the train grounded to a halt. As the cause of the incident was investigated, passengers were directed to evacuate the train’s carriages and walk down an emergency service tunnel.
Surreal videos of the incident shared on social media showed travelers carrying luggage and pets along the 24-mile tunnel. The holidaymakers had to make their way down the concrete shaft on foot for around 10 minutes to get in front of the stricken train and meet a replacement vehicle. The passengers then faced an hours-long wait for the new train to arrive.
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“The service tunnel was terrifying,” traveler Sarah Fellows said, according to The Times. “It was like a disaster movie. You were just walking into the abyss not knowing what was happening. We all had to stay under the sea in this big queue. There was a woman crying in the tunnel, another woman having a panic attack who was traveling alone.”
Despite the alarms, Le Shuttle said the train hadn’t broken down, despite the evacuation. “The Shuttle was brought to a controlled stop and inspected,” a spokesperson said. “As a precautionary measure, for their safety and comfort, we transferred the passengers on board to another shuttle, via the service tunnel (which is there for exactly that purpose).
“We brought them to the passenger terminal building, where food and drinks were available, and then slowly brought out the original shuttle and reunited them with their vehicles.”
The Channel Tunnel is shared by two main passenger services connecting the U.K. to Europe—the Eurostar and the Eurotunnel Le Shuttle. Passengers using Eurotunnel Le Shuttle drive onto the subterranean trains in their own cars or on buses, while foot passengers take the Eurostar.
The tunnel itself, which boasts the longest underwater section (23.5 miles) of any tunnel on the planet, has been the scene of much more dramatic calamities in the past. Most notably, the tunnel’s full services were disrupted for six months after a fire in 1996 and several people were hospitalized with smoke inhalation during another fire in the tunnel in 2008.
