COVENTRY MESSAGE BOARD

More than 700 passengers have had to be rescued from a Eurostar train in Kent after it experienced what the company said was a "major technical problem".

Eurostar said the Paris to London train was stuck south of Ashford but a rescue train would take passengers to London.

The train was due to leave Gare du Nord at 2043 GMT and arrive in St Pancras at 2159 GMT but was delayed after an unattended bag caused a security alert.

Eurostar said the new train was due to arrive in London at 0200 GMT on Monday.

Eurostar would not confirm passengers' claim that lights in the carriages had failed or reports that the power car had become detached from the rest of the train.

'Lost all power'

A spokeswoman said it did not know what had caused the electrically powered train to stop at about 2245 GMT.

She said: "We are investigating what happened fully. We ensured a rescue train was there incredibly quickly.

"We have put everything in position so that people who need to get taxis or people who need hotels are taken care of.

"Our priority is to make sure our passengers are looked after."

She added passengers on the rescue train would be given food and drink at Ashford and St Pancras stations.

Eurostar said there was not expected to be any disruption to services later and passengers should check in as normal.

A later Paris-to-London service successfully bypassed the stranded train, the spokeswoman said.

Richard Startari, who was on the train, said: "Just 10 minutes from Ashford, the Eurostar kind of stopped, at which point we then lost all power."

He said staff had provided water but did not appear to have torches.

Compensation announcement

Passenger Richard Kenny said passengers were sat in the dark for about two hours.

He said staff had kept passengers informed and the rescue operation appeared to be "well organised".

But Andres Falconer, who has been transferred to the rescue train, said the evacuation operation was "painfully slow".

He added: "Eurostar is understaffed, under resourced and unprepared to handle such incidents."

He said passengers had been told they would receive £300 compensation.

The incident is the latest problem to hit Eurostar in recent months.

Several trains broke down in December when heavy snowfall caused the trains to lose power, leaving the service crippled for three days.

A total of 2,500 passengers were stuck in the tunnel for up to five-and-a-half hours while a further 100,000 were stranded because of the delays.

The firm was subsequently strongly criticised by an independent review which said its contingency plans for helping stranded passengers were "insufficient".

It also raised concerns over the poor conditions for passengers stuck on the trains in the Channel Tunnel.

Carriages lost air conditioning and lighting as a result of the power failure, while sanitary conditions quickly became poor.

Services between the UK and Brussels have also been delayed in the past week following a collision between two Belgian passenger trains on 15 February.