Hundreds of Eurostar passengers stuck on trains overnight

Two Eurostar trains came to a standstill outside Lille for more than eight hours in the night from Thursday to Friday. Broken overhead cables were the cause of the power outage. Passengers posted updates to Twitter, including complaints that they had spent hours in the dark with no heating and very little information, Belgian media reported.

The trains were stranded in a remote area near Lille, where they had to wait several hours for diesel trains to arrive and haul them away. A spokesperson for Eurostar said in British media that the doors of the trains could be opened, but that passengers were not allowed to leave the trains for safety reasons.

The company apologised for the incident via Twitter.