Eurostar trains delayed after bomb alert at Calais-Fréthun station

Eurostar services between London and Paris were disrupted on Thursday after a bomb alert at Calais-Fréthun station in northern France. French authorities ordered trains to stop passing through the station while the threat was investigated, causing delays to some journeys to and from London, according to the Mirror and the Evening Standard.

The alert has since been resolved. The Pas-de-Calais prefecture said in a post on X at 8.40am that a bomb alert was under way at the station, and in a second post less than two hours later said the situation had been resolved. The Mirror reported that rail traffic resumed after checks by French authorities.

What Eurostar said

In an earlier statement, Eurostar said trains were unable to pass through Calais-Fréthun at the request of the French authorities, and that this was causing delays to some services to and from London.

Which services were affected

The Evening Standard reported that delays hit several services, including:

the 9.01am from St Pancras to Brussels Midi/Zuid;
the 9.10am and 10.10am from Paris Gare du Nord to St Pancras;
the 12.31pm and 1.31pm from St Pancras to Paris, which were listed as delayed on the online departures board because of the incident at the Calais station.

At St Pancras, passengers faced long queues, with lines of people carrying luggage stretching along the building and winding round towards the Eurostar departures area, the Standard said.

What this means for travellers

For passengers, the main consequence was delay and crowding at the London terminal. The departures board shows that the knock-on effects continued into the afternoon, with later Paris services still listed as delayed because of the Calais incident, even after the prefecture said the alert itself was over.

A wider pattern of bomb threats

The incident came a day after widespread bomb threats prompted school evacuations in parts of the UK and Europe, including Scotland, Northern Ireland and Italy, the Mirror reported.

The Evening Standard said a wave of bomb threats and hoaxes had been received across Europe in recent weeks, leading to flight disruption and school closures. It said Heathrow and Birmingham airports were among those that received threats last week that were assessed as not credible, while dozens of flights across the continent were also targeted. The broadcasters Sky and RTE, Ireland's national broadcaster, were among a number of media organisations that received a bomb threat on Friday.

It is not clear whether the incidents are connected.

Around Prague, based on reporting by Mirror, Evening Standard

Cover photo: Andrewrabbott / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped

Share: Telegram WhatsApp