12th September 2008

Eurotunnel has always been my salvation. It means that, when travelling back to the UK from France, I don't have to risk mid-air disasters in our ever-crowded skies, fatal errors by our overstretched air-traffic controllers or the inevitable seasickness on those awful cross-Channel ferries. But it seems that there is no escape for me if I want to travel. Even Eurotunnel has now had its own disaster, the worst in its 14-year history, so what is a poor traveller to do?
Yesterday many people were evacuated from a freight train via the third, emergency, service tunnel as a fire quickly flared up and continued to spread. Temperatures quickly reached 1,000C. Investigators have already discovered that the cause was a faulty brake on a lorry which overheated when the train was six miles from the French end of the tunnel, causing a tyre to explode, which in turn set light to the cab. It almost sounds like a disaster movie when we hear that nearby was another lorry carrying carbolic acid! Can you imagine the consequences? François Malhanche, the director of the Pas de Calais region prefect's office, said there were 30 lorries on the shuttle, including the one transporting the carbolic acid, or phenol, which is used in medicines and as an antiseptic.
I may be foolish here, but in a situation where vehicles and passengers are travelling deep underneath the ocean, should toxic or flammable liquids be allowed through the tunnel at all? I couldn't believe it this morning when I read by both the English and French authorities: "Strict rules have been applied to the carriage of flammable liquids in bulk since the start.They were reviewed after the 1996 fire by the Inter-Governmental Safety Commission. While lorries have diesel in the tank, which is flammable, they should not be part of their cargo....These rules are supposed to have been more strictly enforced.....'
So, it looks like the usual human cock-up. Don't put down to malice what is sheer incompetence.
You couldn't make it up!