CALAIS, France (AFP) — Services were set to resume through the Channel Tunnel overnight Friday, more than 24 hours after a 1,000-degree inferno shut down the busy link between Britain and mainland Europe.
Eurotunnel, which runs the dual-tunnel undersea link, said freight-hauling trains would soon begin running through the world's longest uninterrupted undersea link, with Eurostar passenger trains liable to follow Saturday.
"Our inspections are now completed and (freight) traffic will resume tonight (Friday) -- that is certain," said Eurotunnel chief executive officer Jacques Gounon on French television.
"Installations in the south tunnel, which was not touched by fire, are in excellent condition," he said, as the exact cause of the inferno remained under investigation.
Earlier, a Eurotunnel spokeswoman said passenger services would "very probably" resume Saturday. Besides high-speed Eurostar trains from London to Paris and Brussels, the tunnel also shuttles passenger cars.
The French national rail operator SNCF cautioned, however, that if passenger service did not resume Saturday, "it will be greatly reduced all weekend, with travel times extended."
The fire -- the third to strike the 50-kilometre (30-mile) tunnel since it opened in May 1994 -- claimed no fatalities, but it left tens of thousands of travellers stranded or forced to change their travel plans.
Extra flights, buses and cross-Channel ferries were laid on. On Friday alone, some 30,000 travellers had been booked to ride a total of 50 Eurostar trains -- all of which were cancelled.
British and French firefighters on Friday put out the inferno deep inside the north tunnel, after battling all Thursday night in relay teams and the temperature soared to 1,000 degrees Celsius (1,830 degrees Fahrenheit).
Nearly all 27 lorries riding the 700-metre-long France-bound train on which the fire broke out Thursday were burned, and Eurotunnel said it would take weeks to rebuild the stricken section of tunnel.
"We need to redo the electricity, the concrete, everything you do when a house burns down," a Eurotunnel spokeswoman said.
The fire-stricken train was about 12 kilometres (seven miles) from the Calais exit on the French side of the 50.5-kilometre (31.4 mile) tunnel when it caught fire, officials said.
Thirty-two truck drivers on the shuttle smashed windows to escape and get into the service tunnel from where they were evacuated. Six people were injured in the third major blaze since the tunnel under the Channel opened in May 1994.
Officials said they suspected the fire started in a truck's braking system that overheated and spread to a tyre, but Eurotunnel's Gounon said it was too soon to say with any certainty what the cause was.
One of the 30 trucks on the shuttle was carrying phenol acid, but this reportedly did not catch fire.
Gounon said safety precautions had worked "perfectly," and he dismissed the matter of truck drivers smashing windows as a "normal" reaction by men who "perhaps wanted to get out faster than necessary from the pressurised cabin."
He told French radio the automatic doors on the shuttle only function when it is certain that safety fans are working so there is no risk of anyone being overcome by fumes.
In the first serious incident in the tunnel on November 18, 1996, a fire broke out on a late-night shuttle train carrying trucks. Eight people were injured and the service was disrupted for several months.
On August 21, 2006, the tunnel was closed for several hours after a truck engine caught fire, sending smoke through the tunnel.
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