Rail services from the Paris Gare du Nord train station will gradually resume service from 6pm local time (5pm Irish time) after the unearthing of a 500-kilogramme World War II bomb halted traffic, France's transport minister has said.
The defusing operations were "finally over, they went well," Philippe Tabarot said, adding that the bomb "contained 200kg of explosives".
The unexploded Second World War bomb was found near train tracks in the French capital.
The discovery disrupted the travels plans of thousands of passengers after Eurostar suspended its services between London and Paris.
It cancelled all cross-channel train services in the aftermath of the find, urging passengers to change their journey "for a different date".
In a statement, the rail company said the unexploded World War II bomb was found "during work carried out on the tracks in St Denis (north of Paris)", adding traffic was "completely halted to and from Gare du Nord".
"As a result, all Eurostar trains are cancelled to and from Paris today," the statement added.
About 220 million passengers pass through the Gare du Nord, Europe's busiest train station, each year, travelling to and from destinations in northern France, and London, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, according to the Paris tourist office.
Eurostar offered affected travellers exchanges and refunds on their train tickets.
The cancellation of all 32 trains scheduled to operate between the cities left many people struggling to find alternative routes to their destination.
A large crowd of people who were booked on affected services gathered outside the check-in area at London St Pancras station.
Charlotte Kidd, from Bath, was hoping to get to Disneyland Paris to celebrate her 30th birthday.
She said if her train was cancelled she would "try and get there some other way".
Emma Roe, part of a group of eight friends, said they were looking up flights from Luton Airport to Amsterdam but nothing was available until 6pm.
She said: "We're all parents, so we don't want to lose our free weekend."
Other Eurostar routes between London and Brussels or Amsterdam were running as normal.
Lee Bailey, 48, who lives in Paris, had planned to travel to London to spend the weekend with his partner.
The train this morning he was initially booked on from the Gare du Nord was cancelled, so he rebooked onto an afternoon departure, which was also cancelled.
"There were several hundred people waiting to go through the ticket scanners and passport control who were being held back and people were calm, but it was obviously frustrating," he said.
"They cancelled the first three trains in the morning and said we could rebook so I did rebook for a train later this afternoon but I just found out via a text message that one's been cancelled as well," Mr Bailey added.
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
Additional reporting PA
