Eurostar train services between the UK and the EU have been restored after a huge section of rail cable was stolen or cut in France, causing delays to thousands of journeys.
Passengers booked on Eurostar train services had been urged to cancel or delay their trips after the theft, which threatened to disrupt the Nato summit in the Netherlands.
A team of 15 engineers scrambled to repair the high-speed line after 600m of cable was stolen or cut at Lille Europe station, the key interchange for trains between London and Paris and between Paris and Brussels and Amsterdam.
Eurostar told customers on Wednesday morning that, due to the theft, its trains were “likely to be subject to severe delays and last-minute cancellations. Our stations are very busy, and we advise you to cancel or postpone your trip.”
Eurostar advised all passengers on Wednesday to either change their journey or cancel it and request a free exchange or refund.
But by the afternoon, the company said “full repairs are now completed” and trains had resumed.
The situation caused chaos for travellers at London St Pancras station.
Ed and Paul, 41 and 37, work in renewable energy and were due to travel to Paris for a meeting. “It has been a nightmare. It’s been pretty shocking,” said Ed.
“The app basically said: ‘Your journey is being disrupted’, but they didn’t say: ‘Your train is definitely cancelled’, so it’s been quite confusing and we’re wondering if we will still get our money back.”
A couple in their 70s from Coventry who had their holiday plans disrupted said: “We had our train cancelled this morning and we’ve been waiting most of the day for Eurostar to make alternative arrangements.” The couple intended to instead take a flight to Spain from Gatwick.
By 4pm calm had been restored to St Pancras with just a 35-minute delay to a train to Brussels.
Police have launched an investigation, with forensic teams on the scene outside Lille that has disrupted dozens of high-speed services.
Dutch authorities were also investigating disruption in the Netherlands on Tuesday after a power outage on around 30 rail cables affected trains from Schiphol airport, about 50km away from the Nato summit in The Hague.
The justice minister of the Netherlands, David van Weel, said the damage could have been an attempt to sabotage the two-day meeting of Nato leaders. “The question is who is behind it. It can be an activist group, it can be a country,” he said.
The French regional train network TER Hauts de France said 15 cable installers and specialists had been mobilised to repair the line at Lille Europe.
The company said the theft occurred along the track bordering Mont-de-Terre station, between Lille and Lezennes, on signal cables laid in gutters on the ground.
It said agents from the French national rail company, SNCF, were carrying out repairs by bringing in new cables. “As is always the case in this type of operation, the task involves connecting, one by one, around 15 wires making up each cable. This is meticulous work,” it said.
The delays follow disruption on Tuesday after two people died in separate incidents on the line between Lille and Paris, causing the line to be shut for most of the day.
In May, Spain’s transport minister said the country’s rail network had suffered “an act of serious sabotage” after vital signalling cable was stolen over a busy bank holiday weekend, bringing severe delays to high-speed services between Madrid and Seville that affected more than 10,000 people.
