Euro MP demands inquiry into Eurostar disruption
(PARIS) - A French MEP who was stuck for six hours under the English Channel in a broken down Eurostar train said Sunday that he would demand an official inquiry into the train operator's "failings".
Dominique Baudis -- who represents southwestern France -- and his wife and son were among several thousand passengers who were trapped on Friday when their Eurostar trains lost power in the Channel Tunnel.
"As a member of the European parliament, I plan to ask the transport commissioner to set up an inquiry into what happened," he told AFP from London, where he eventually arrived on Saturday after a difficult night.
"The chain of events was an aberation. Eurostar's complete inertia was scandalous," he said, accusing the train operating firm of abandoning its passengers to their fate.
According to Baudis, he and 650 other passengers on board his train were trapped for six hours on board their service in the tunnel, before being led slowly out in groups of ten through a single door.
They were, he said, transferred to a service tunnel, where they were put onto to freight wagons without seating and left on the floor without water.
These trucks brought them to Folkestone on the English end of the tunnel, where they were left sealed in for another hour "without any idea what was going on" before being transferred to a passenger train.
"There was no water, the fridges were empty, and no crew on board apart from firemen," he complained. The passengers waited for three more hours on this train before it eventually set off to take them on to London.
While some passengers remained cheerful despite their ordeal, others were extremely anxious, he said, demanding to know why after their train had been stuck of six hours there was no-one to welcome them with hot drinks.
He also demanded to know why further trains were allowed to enter the tunnel after a first had broken down. In all five trains broke down on Friday, because of what the company said were extremely low temperatures in France.
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