(The Turkish Post) – Nineteen people were injured on Oct. 15 when a minibus carrying truck drivers crashed into a train on a loading platform at the French terminal of the Channel Tunnel in Coquelles, near Calais, the prefecture of the Pas-de-Calais department said.
No one was killed and none of the injured were in a life-threatening condition, the prefecture said. Prosecutors opened a judicial investigation into the crash, which the local sub-prefect described as the first accident of its kind on a Channel Tunnel loading platform.
Minibus hits Le Shuttle train at Coquelles
The minibus was taking heavy goods vehicle drivers to board a Le Shuttle freight train bound for England when the accident happened at around 7:30 p.m. local time, according to the prefecture.
The prefect said the minibus left its lane for reasons that have not been determined and ended up hitting the side of a Le Shuttle train that was about to depart. Some earlier official accounts described the train as stationary.
The alert was raised at 7:27 p.m. and emergency services were dispatched at 7:36 p.m., the prefect said. Eurotunnel, the company that operates the Channel Tunnel, first mobilized its own emergency teams before the operation was placed under the authority of the prefect.
On the freight shuttles, trucks travel on open wagons while their drivers ride in a separate passenger coach. After leaving their trucks on the train, drivers are taken to that coach by minibus along the platform.
Nineteen injured, two flown to Lille
The 19 injured were the driver of the minibus and 18 passengers, according to Agathe Cury, the sub-prefect of Calais, who briefed reporters at the Eurotunnel site late on Oct. 15.
In a first statement on X shortly after the crash, the prefecture said 19 people, including the driver, were involved and that the sub-prefect had gone to the site. It later said that toll was final.
Emergency services first classified five people as needing urgent care. That figure was later revised down to two, while the remaining 17 were listed as less seriously hurt.
The two most seriously injured were flown by helicopter to the university hospital in Lille. The other 17 were taken to hospitals in the region, including in Calais, Boulogne-sur-Mer and Dunkirk.
About 55 firefighters, 25 members of the mobile emergency medical service (SMUR), about 20 border police officers and around 100 Eurotunnel employees took part in the rescue operation, according to the prefecture.
Eurotunnel suspends passenger shuttles
Eurotunnel halted Le Shuttle passenger services for about an hour and a half while emergency teams dealt with the accident, the prefecture said. Eurostar high-speed trains between London and the European mainland and freight traffic through the tunnel were not affected.
Traffic returned to normal later in the evening.
Cury told reporters that the cause of the accident was not yet known and that a judicial investigation had been opened.
Channel Tunnel links Britain with France
The Channel Tunnel opened in 1994 and runs about 50 kilometers under the English Channel between Folkestone in southeast England and Coquelles in northern France. It is the only fixed link between Great Britain and the European mainland.
Eurotunnel, part of the Getlink group, runs two shuttle services through it: Le Shuttle for cars and their passengers, and Le Shuttle Freight for trucks and their drivers. The crossing takes about 35 minutes, and freight shuttles depart on average every eight to 10 minutes, according to the company. Eurotunnel says it carries nearly 8 million passengers and more than 1 million trucks a year.
The Coquelles terminal is the continental end of the shuttle service, where vehicles are checked and loaded onto the trains. Its British counterpart is the Folkestone terminal at Cheriton.
Earlier serious incidents in the tunnel involved fires on truck shuttles. In November 1996, a fire broke out on a shuttle carrying trucks and their drivers from France to Britain. In September 2008, another France-bound truck shuttle caught fire in the tunnel, and the blaze lasted about 16 hours.
