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Passengers stranded in dark after Eurostar trains suspended
Eurostar passengers were left stranded in the dark after "trespassers" entered the tracks on Tuesday, in the latest disruption to the cross-Channel service by suspected migrants trying to reach Britain
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urostar passengers were left stranded in the dark after "trespassers" entered the tracks on Tuesday, in the latest disruption to the cross-Channel service by suspected migrants trying to reach Britain.
The trains -- one in Britain and four in France -- were prevented from entering the Channel Tunnel after people blocked the tracks in Calais at around 10:30 pm (2030 GMT), the company said.
"We have trespassers on the French side of the tunnel, which means that the traffic is blocked. Five trains are stuck on both sides," a Eurostar spokesman said.
"We are waiting for the police to clear the zone so that the trains and traffic can start again. Because we don't know when the site will be cleared we really can't say anything about how long the tunnel delay will be. It's impossible for us to say right now."
France and Britain have brought in emergency measures to deal with a surge in the number of migrants trying cross the Channel Tunnel after people have been killed while making a desperate attempt to reach England.
Some 3,000 migrants camped out in the northern French port of Calais have been ramping up their attempts to outfox hopelessly outnumbered security officials and police to reach what they see as the "El Dorado" of Britain.
Passengers said conditions on the Eurostar trains were becoming unbearable.
"We have been waiting at the entrance to the tunnel for almost four hours and now there is no more electricity and we have been left in darkness," said Geraldine Guyon, a passenger stuck on a Eurostar train from Paris to London.
"From where we are, we see the Eurotunnel shuttles. They told that there were problems with migrants on the tracks," she said, adding that a helicopter had been flying for about an hour above the Eurostar.
