Cold traps thousands in tunnel

55,000 passengers stranded as channel tunnel trains plagued by breakdowns.

The Eurostar train service, which runs under the English Channel between Britain and France, will be shut indefinitely after technical faults stranded five trains in the tunnel for hours.

Thousands are caught on the wrong side of the channel just days before Christmas.

Eurostar's commercial director says that because of the especially cold weather, snow is being sucked into the trains in a way that has never happened before.