Eurotunnel passengers had to be evacuated from a train after it broke down beneath the English Channel.
They were transferred to a cargo train but complained of being stuck in the sub-sea tunnel for nearly five hours, citing issues with the replacement transport.
The initial breakdown yesterday evening affected the 3.50pm Eurotunnel Le Shuttle service from Calais to Folkestone and led to hundreds of passengers being ushered into a service tunnel.
Videos on social media showed holidaymakers walking through the alternate tunnel alongside the 50km rail route between Britain and France, some with suitcases and dogs.
Meanwhile, travellers in Calais were told to stay away from the terminal until this morning, with pictures showing gridlock at the shuttle terminal late into the evening.
A spokesman said this morning: "All services are back to normal, with no waiting for passengers on site.
"The incident followed an alarm on board a shuttle carrying 100 vehicles.
"The shuttle was brought to a controlled stop and inspected.
"As a precautionary measure, for their safety and comfort, we transferred the passengers on board to another shuttle, via the service tunnel (which is there for exactly that purpose).
"Operations like this do take time, but they are for the safety of everyone and must be conducted carefully."
Michael Harrison, from Cranbrook, Kent, one of those on the evacuated train, told the PA news agency: "We got on the 3.50pm crossing, approximately ten minutes in the lights went out and the train stopped.
"We were told they needed to investigate an issue with the wheels.
"It took approximately one-and-a-half hours for them to investigate and obviously not find anything.
"They reset things and set off for another five minutes.
"It happened again at which time we waited a further couple of hours to decide they couldn't see a problem but had to evacuate the train to another train.
"After further waiting we left the train through the emergency link tunnel to the service tunnel.
"We then walked approximately ten minutes to a train in front of the stricken train.
"This was a bus carriage where we got transported to Folkestone.
"That train then stopped as it couldn't get traction, presumably as it was long and had no weight on it.
"There were gasps of incredulity when that was announced.
"We finally arrived in Folkestone six hours after boarding."
On the train & departing soon.🤞 7.5 hours late. @LeShuttle you need a contingency plan in place to inform travellers what's going on when something like this happens. Your communication has been abysmal #eurotunnel pic.twitter.com/LWRwutPi9W
— Bruce Atkinson (@bruceatkinson17) August 23, 2022
Another passenger who was evacuated, but did not want to be named, told PA that "several people were freaking out about being down in the service tunnel, it's a bit of a weird place".
He added: "We were stuck down there for at least five hours.
"If I've got a gripe it's that they knew several hundred people were arriving at Folkestone who hadn't eaten for five, six or more hours and there was absolutely nothing for us here.
"Just huge queues for Burger King."
Journalist Bruce Atkinson, caught up in the delays at Calais, tweeted: "Sitting in the boarding queue at Calais with no idea how long we will be waiting. Been here 4 hours so far."
Jonel Schwarz added on Twitter: "We've been caught in the trap for over 4 hours. Had we been given any info sooner we never would have entered the trap in the first place."
