A fire in the Channel Tunnel was put out today almost 20 hours after it took hold on a freight train, and the tunnel operator said passenger services between Britain and France should resume slowly over the weekend.
An official said there were indications the fire had started by accident but it was too early to identify the exact cause.
Eurotunnel, which manages the undersea rail link, said its technicians were checking all the security systems of one of the tunnels, which had not been affected, in the hope of resuming "commercial traffic" soon.
"We will be able to resume traffic tonight," Eurotunnel chief executive Jacques Gounon told French TV station TF1.
Mr Gounon said two empty shuttle trains would travel before midnight. The company hoped to let freight trains through between 1200-0100 GMT (1 p.m.-2 p.m. Irish time) while passenger trains were expected to resume service later on Saturday morning.
Eurostar, which operates the cross-Channel trains, had told passengers earlier that it did not expect to be back running trains on Friday. Anyone holding tickets for weekend trains should consult its www.eurostar.com website, it said.
No one was killed in the fire, which turned one of the two tunnel shafts into an inferno, with temperatures reaching 1,000 degrees.
This section of track might take weeks to repair, but Eurotunnel's chief executive said the adjoining tunnel "had not suffered any damage".
Reuters