A migrant has reportedly died in trying to get to the UK after being electrocuted in “ball of flame” after he climbed on top of the Eurostar.
The man is said to have been struck on Thursday night at Paris’s Gare du Nord railway station when he came into contact with the overhead cable around 10pm. It was said he had been seen running between platforms 12 and 13.
Le Parisien reported that CCTV footage shows him climbing onto a London-bound train and standing up before bursting into flames.
Emergency services were able to extinguish the fire before 10.20pm but were unable to save the man - who was burned so badly that he cannot be identified.
Nobody else was injured in the incident. The Standard has contacted Eurostar, which has acknowledged the incident took place but has declined to comment further.
The incident led to disruption on Thursday night with thousands of passengers stranded due to delays and cancellations.
Parisian prosecutors have said they had opened an investigation to be led by border police at the Gare du Nord, AFP has reported.
Eurostar last week announced that it would continue running trains to Amsterdam and that it had a 22 per cent rise in passenger numbers over the year.
Eurostar chief executive Gwendoline Cazenave said: “Eurostar is growing and in 2023 we will welcome many more customers on board across our five countries.
“Our goal is to encourage more people to take the train so it’s a win for customers and a win for the planet.
“We have a bold vision to reach 30 million passengers by 2030, and growth in 2023 of 22 per cent versus 2022 shows we are strongly on our way.”
