Eurotunnel chief admits breach in safety code

Eurotunnel admitted for the first time yesterday that safety officials knew on Monday night that one of the Channel train wagons was smouldering but planned not to stop the train until it left the tunnel.

Why it stopped there instead, putting staff and passengers' lives at risk, will be one of the crucial questions for the inquiries investigating the fire which has severely dented public confidence in the tunnel.

Eurotunnel's joint director Alain Bertrand, speaking in Calais yesterday, confirmed that two security guards had noticed the train "if not quite on fire, then smouldering" metres before it entered the tunnel.

Mr Bertrand said that this information was relayed to the control centre at Calais. Once inside the tunnel, other safety systems designed to detect fire and smoke and placed at two kilometre intervals had confirmed to both the control centre and another emergency centre that the freight train was at least partially on fire. He said: "It was planned that the train should continue on its journey [some 50 kilometres] and go on to exit in England." He repeated: "It was not supposed to stop."

More wagons from train were brought out of the tunnel early yesterday morning. The charred and mangled remains of the lorries inside the steel lattice of the freight wagons gave a horrific indication of the intense inferno they had faced inside the confines of the tunnel.

Melted wheels and covers, twisted and peeled cargo, torn away fibreglass, tons of damaged cargo and a severe stench of smoke clung to the first few lorries. Then came the wagons which were nearer the blaze. One looked as though it had simply melted, its cargo of pineapples barbecued to ash, its wheels melted, leaving only a crude skeleton of a vehicle.

For Eurotunnel the worry now is: if this is the condition of the wagons five lorries away from the epicentre of the blaze, what can the condition of the remaining five wagons still left in the tunnel now be? The sight of them is likely to further horrify potential passengers.

The Inter Governmental Safety Commission continued meeting in Calais for another lengthy session yesterday. There is no sign from the Commission that they are nearer to allowing either car or tourist passenger trains back into the tunnel. Only bulk goods trains have been given permission to use the remaining clear tunnel.

In the week ahead, Eurotunnel will have to persuade the Commission they have already learned lessons from the fire.

British firefighters argued strongly that the breakdown in communications might have been caused by an over-complex chain of responsibility which caused a "balls up" at the English end of the tunnel.