Ministers demand Eurostar answers

Eurostar management are coming under increasing pressure to explain why trains ground to a halt in the cold weather.

Transport minister Sadiq Khan said he is "angry" that passengers had still not been told what was going on, and his French counterpart demanded to know what had gone wrong.

More than 2,000 passengers were trapped in the Channel Tunnel overnight on Friday after the cold weather struck. There have since been three days of cancellations, leaving the 55,000 passengers who had booked tickets either stranded or forced to make other arrangements.

To add to the travel chaos, Channel Tunnel company Eurotunnel closed its shuttle train passenger service at Folkestone in Kent after being inundated with customers unable to take Eurostar trains.

Eurostar has announced an immediate independent review of the problems and said it hopes the service will be back up and running on Tuesday.

Mr Khan said: "This has been a terrible experience for thousands of passengers, both those stranded on the trains and at the stations and the many thousands more who face having their Christmas holiday plans disrupted.

"I am angry that passengers have still not been told what is going on and I have told Eurostar this morning that they must tell the public immediately what their plans are to get more people moving.

"I hope this will include the resumption of services as soon as possible. It's important that passengers get absolute clarity of what they can expect over the next few days. I have secured an independent inquiry into all aspects of this ongoing incident which will report directly to me."

French transport minister Dominique de Bussereau also demanded explanations, saying: "We cannot imagine that this mode of transport, which is fundamental between France and England, between England and Belgium and the rest of continental Europe, doesn't work because it's snowing outside.

"Therefore, the government is asking, number one, for explanations, number two, we are going to do our own probe, number three, we demand that measures be taken so this does not happen in the future."