All Eurostar services between London and Paris were canceled on March 6 after an unexploded bomb dating back to World War II was found near the Gare du Nord station in France, causing significant travel delays for passengers on both sides of the English Channel.
The bomb was discovered overnight by workers doing earthmoving works near the tracks in the Seine-Saint-Denis region that borders Paris to the north, a Eurostar spokesperson told The Epoch Times.
Bomb disposal experts were sent to the site and are working to disable the decades-old device.
French Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot said the bomb weighed half a ton and that a “quite large” security perimeter was set up around the bomb disposal operation. People have also been evacuated from surrounding areas, he said, while urging commuters to postpone rail trips.
Tabarot added that he expected the disruption to continue for at least the rest of the day.
Eurostar, which operates the high-speed trains between Britain and France, said the disruption is affecting commuter rails and national and international trains.
“Due to an object on the tracks near Paris Gare du Nord, we are expecting disruption to our services this morning,” a spokesperson for the rail operator said. “As a result, all Eurostar trains are cancelled to and from Paris today 7 March 2025: all London-Paris, Paris-London, Brussels-Paris and Paris-Brussels.”
Eurostar said that the Brussels–Marne-la-Vallée, London–Brussels, and London–Amsterdam services were still running normally.
“Eurostar has informed its passengers,” the spokesperson said, adding that customers can exchange their ticket for free to travel at a different date in the same travel class or claim a refund.
“Tomorrow, Eurostar expects normal traffic between Paris and Brussels, and between Paris and London,” the spokesperson said. “Eurostar will run 2 extra trains tomorrow: one leaving London to Paris in the morning, one leaving Paris to London in the afternoon. Eurostar sincerely apologizes for the disruption and understands the inconvenience this may cause.”
The discovery of unexploded bombs from World War I or World War II is not unusual in France, though finding them in such busy locations is rare.
Roughly 220 million passengers pass through the station in the nation’s capital each year, traveling to and from destinations in northern France, London, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany, according to the Paris tourist office.
French national rail operator SNCF said rail traffic was stopped at the request of police.
Rail services could resume from 4 p.m. local time (3 p.m. GMT), Tabarot said. “If things become safer and we get the green light from the police headquarters in the next few hours, part of the service could—and I do mean could—be restored from 4:00 p.m.,” he told a press briefing.
Speaking on Sud Radio, he said residents and people near the train stations should have “no fear” of a risk of explosion, adding that there are procedures in place for defusing and removing such bombs.
