World News : Channel Tunnel face some disruption for months for repairs damage??

Overview

In 1802 French mining engineer Albert Mathieu put forward a proposal to tunnel under the English Channel, with illumination from oil lamps, horsedrawn coaches, and an artificial island mid-Channel for changing horses.In the 1830s Frenchman Aimé Thomé de Gamond performed the first geological and hydrographical surveys on the Channel, between Calais and Dover. Thomé de Gamond explored several schemes, and in 1856 he presented a proposal to Napoleon III for a mined railway tunnel from Cap Gris-Nez to Eastwater Point with a port/airshaft on the Varne sandbank at a cost of 170 million francs, or less than 7 million pounds sterling.

World News : Channel Tunnel face some disruption for months for repairs damage??
Freight and passenger traffic resumed on Saturday in the Channel Tunnel linking Britain to continental Europe after a fire on Thursday that completely halted traffic and caused chaos for thousands of people.
Eurostar, which runs passenger trains through the undersea tunnel, said it would run up to 12 trains each way on Saturday between London and Paris and up to six each way between London and Brussels.

That represents about half the usual traffic through the tunnel, normally used by 40,000 people every day.

”Trains are operating through the single tunnel that is unaffected by the fire,” Eurostar said in a statement, advising ticket holders to turn up at the scheduled time.

”Eurostar will seek to accommodate them on the first available train. This is likely to mean longer than normal waiting times before departure. Journey times will also be longer than normal,” the company said.

Services will, nevertheless, face some disruption for months as Eurotunnel repairs damage from the fire which started at 3pm on Thursday, burned until 9am on Friday and destroyed a truck-carrying Shuttle train. Temperatures reached as high as 1,000°C, according to the French interior minister.

The test train followed checks by Eurotunnel staff on the southern tunnel, which was not used by the affected train, to ensure there was no smoke or other damage. Staff were then due to check sections of the northern tunnel away from the main fire site to check for damage caused before the fire was spotted.

Services will initially use only the southern tunnel, with batches of Eurotunnel car and truck Shuttles, Eurostar passenger trains and cross-Channel freight trains taking it in turns to head in each direction.

The tunnel’s closure caused chaos for travellers and, given the uncertainty over the reopening schedule, Eurostar warned passengers holding tickets for weekend travel to find alternative transport.

The fire broke out on a truck on board the train 11km before it reached the French end of the 50km tunnel, forcing the evacuation of 32 drivers and the train crew. French newspapers reported it had been caused by overheating of a truck’s brake system. At its peak, hundreds of firefighters from both sides of the Channel were tackling the blaze.

French police on Friday remained in charge of the tunnel section around the fire site. However, when control is handed back to Eurotunnel, repairs are bound to take months. The only previous serious tunnel fire, in November 1996, destroyed only half a train and the latest fire seems to have reached similar temperatures to that one. It took six months for repairs because so much of the concrete tunnel lining was damaged.

After an initial period using only the southern tunnel, Eurotunnel will gradually bring back into use the unaffected two-thirds of the northern tunnel, with trains using a crossover into the southern tunnel to avoid the damaged section. The closure of the last section of the northern tunnel will cause most problems at the tunnel’s busiest times, such as Friday evenings.

“We will have disruption, but we do lots of planned maintenance where we close a tunnel segment without having a major impact on the timetable,” said ­Eurotunnel.

World News : Channel Tunnel face some disruption for months for repairs damage??

World News : Firefighters struggled to save people on Channel Tunnel disaster??

Channel Tunnel overview.
Proposals for a fixed-link to cross the English Channel go back to Albert Mathieu's 1802 plan involving horse-drawn carts and a constructed mid-Channel island. For over 150 years, British political and press pressure over compromised national security stalled attempts to construct a tunnel. In 1974, French and UK government-funded construction commenced on both sides of the Channel, but the project was cancelled by the UK government over financial concerns. In 1985, the UK and French governments invited submissions for a fixed link. Eurotunnel, a group of ten construction companies and five banks, was awarded the project, a triple-bore railway tunnel based on the 1974 attempt. Tunnelling commenced in 1988, and the tunnel began operating in 1994. In 1985 prices, the total construction cost was £4650 million (£10,153 million inflation-adjusted to 2007), an 80% cost overrun. At the peak of construction 15,000 people were employed with daily expenditure over £3 million. Ten workers died during construction.

World News : Firefighters struggled to save people on Channel Tunnel disaster??

CALAIS, France- Firefighters struggled Friday to put out a blaze on a freight shuttle in the Channel Tunnel that injured six people and forced the closure of the undersea link, officials said.

Rescuers evacuated dozens of truck drivers from the tunnel after an explosion and fire on the shuttle Thursday.

Six people suffered smoke inhalation after the blaze took hold on a truck being transported from Britain to France, officials said. Earlier reports of a further eight people slightly injured were incorrect, they added.

"The fire is under control but it is still burning. Working conditions are very difficult due to the heat" which had reached 1,000 degrees Celsius (1,830 Fahrenheit), a spokesman for the local prefecture said at 5:30 am (0330 GMT).

Two hours later two wagons were still on fire , nearly 15 hours after the blaze broke out.

"Two shuttle wagons are still on fire which is hard to put out," the spokesman said.

"Firefighters made some progress but they're working in difficult conditions because of the flames and the heat which is still around 1,000 degrees. It slows them down."

About 40 French and 20 British firefighters are involved in the operation.

Eurotunnel, which operates the tunnel, and Eurostar, which runs high-speed passenger rail services, said the tunnel suffered serious damage and would not reopen on Friday.

It took about three hours to bring 32 people -- mostly truckers who moved from the burning train into a parallel service tunnel -- to safety.

Thousands of people were stranded in London, Paris and Brussels, and huge traffic tailbacks built up on either side of the Channel after the tunnel was closed.

Eurostar said on its website that it "does not expect to operate a service" Friday, with a question mark placed over Saturday and Sunday schedules too.

It is the third major fire in the tunnel since it was opened in May 1994.

The train was about five kilometres (three miles) from the Calais exit on the French side of the 50.5-kilometre tunnel when it caught fire, according to Francois Malhanche, director of the regional prefect's office.

"The fire appears to be accidental. It started in a truck brake system that overheated and spread to a tyre and then to two other trucks," Malhanche said.

One of the other trucks on the shuttle was carrying phenol acid, but this did not catch fire, officials said.

Helicopters and ambulances were waiting at the French entrance to take the injured to hospital.

French Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie went immediately to the site in northern France.

"Two of the drivers said they heard an explosion and this was followed by flames," she told reporters. "They tried to get out and could do so because of the structure of the tunnel which allows a rapid evacuation."

"It is probable that the damage is major, as the firemen told me that the heat from the fire probably reached 1,000 degrees Celsius," she added.

The multi-billion-dollar tunnel carries Eurostar high-speed trains between London, Paris and Brussels, as well as freight and passenger shuttles between Folkestone in England and Calais.

There are two tunnels for passenger trains and shuttles and a service tunnel for maintenance and safety operations.

In the first serious incident on November 18, 1996, a fire broke out on a late-night shuttle train carrying trucks. Eight people were injured and the service was disrupted for several months.

On August 21, 2006, the tunnel was closed for several hours after a truck engine caught fire, sending smoke through the tunnel.

Long traffic tailbacks rapidly formed on the British end after the latest closure.

Kent Fire and Rescue service, on the British side, said it sent seven fire engines to help French counterparts at the scene. A spokeswoman called it a "serious incident."

Kent police implemented "Operation Stack," which allows trucks to park along the main M20 motorway running down to the tunnel terminal from London.

The SNCF French state rail firm said four high-speed express trains had to return to Paris or London because of the tunnel closure.

Thousands of passengers were left stranded at the Gare du Nord rail station in Paris and the new St Pancras station in London.

There was a rush for any remaining plane seats between London and Paris and for available hotel rooms.

World News : Firefighters struggled to save people on Channel Tunnel disaster??

World News : Channel tunnel caused serious damage???

The Channel Tunnel (French: Le tunnel sous la Manche), also known as Chunnel or Eurotunnel, is a 50.5-kilometre (31.4 mi) undersea rail tunnel linking the United Kingdom and France, running beneath the English Channel at the Strait of Dover. The tunnel connects Folkestone, Kent in England to Coquelles near Calais in northern France and at its lowest point is 246 feet deep ^[1]. It has the longest undersea portion of any tunnel in the world (Japan's Seikan Tunnel is longer overall (33.49 miles) and reaches a depth of 787 feet).

The tunnel carries high-speed Eurostar passenger railway services, Eurotunnel Shuttle RORO vehicle transport and international rail freight trains. In 1996 the American Society of Civil Engineers identified the tunnel as one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World.

World News : Channel tunnel caused serious damage???

PARIS: The Channel Tunnel that links Britain and the Continent was closed Friday after an overnight blaze that reached temperatures as high as 1,800 degrees.

The fire, which broke out on Thursday on a France-bound freight shuttle train carrying trucks, may have started on one of the trucks, safety officials said. The fire was not extinguished until Friday, said Mady Chabrier, a spokeswoman for the operator, Eurotunnel.

The closing raised new questions about how such incidents could occur, especially after previous fires in the tunnel. The fire threatened to disrupt services for several weeks in the tunnel, which is used by truckers as well as by tens of thousands of tourists and business people every day.

Reports on Thursday afternoon suggested that damage and disruption were not heavy. But by Friday morning, officials said it had taken firefighters most of the night to douse the flames, and a truck driver told French news media that he and others had narrowly escaped.

"Because it's a tunnel, it works like an oven," Chabrier said. "I guess the concrete has suffered and the iron inside of the tunnel, and we have to check now what the situation is."

Eurotunnel said 32 passengers on the train, most of them truckers, escaped after being evacuated into the maintenance tunnel.

Six people were taken to a hospital in Calais suffering from smoke inhalation. There were no reports of more serious injuries.

The temperature inside the north tunnel, where the fire occurred, remained high on Friday afternoon. French officials said the fire was probably accidental. The exact cause is under investigation.

The link consists of two tunnels that carry freight and passenger trains in opposite directions, and a third tunnel used for maintenance and evacuations.

So far, the closing of the tunnel is the longest since 1996, when a fire shut down freight and passenger services for two weeks and kept the tunnel partly closed for months.

That blaze resulted from a fire on a truck, as did another episode in 2006, according to safety officials.

"There are a lot of questions to be asked, particularly about whether the truck tipped over in some way, or whether it was carrying flammable chemicals," Christian Wolmar, a journalist and leading commentator on transportation issues, said of the most recent fire.

But he said there might be little more that British and French authorities could do to ensure safety on the undersea system without hampering cross-channel trade and transportation.

"There is a trade-off between safety and cost," Wolmar said. "I can't imagine there are easy-to-do measures that would enhance safety further without disproportionate cost."

The French ground-transportation accident-investigation bureau, known by its French acronym, Bea-tt, was taking the lead in the investigation into the fire, according to a spokesman for the British Secretariat to the Channel Tunnel Safety Authority.

In coming weeks, trains will probably run in both directions using only the south tunnel, Chabrier said.

The train was nearly seven miles from Coquelles, France, where the 31-mile tunnel ends, near the port of Calais, when the fire broke out.

Eurostar, the company that provides passenger rail service through the tunnel, said it hoped to be able to begin running a limited service starting Saturday. Freight trains began rolling again late Friday night, the Associated Press reported.

World News : Channel tunnel caused serious damage???