London’s Charing Cross Station Closed after Fire on Train
Charing Cross station was closed on Sunday morning after a small fire in the front carriage of a Southeastern train, London Fire Brigade said. It said the blaze, which affected 5% of the carriage, had been brought under control.
The station was evacuated at 10.50am. British Transport police said the fire, on a train on platform six, is believed to have been caused by an electrical fault and there were no suspicious circumstances.
A London Ambulance Service spokeswoman said, “We were called at 10.55am to reports of a fire on a train at Charing Cross. We sent a duty manager to the scene and two patients were checked over, but nobody was taken to hospital. Our involvement in the incident has now concluded.”
London Fire Brigade said that the station has reopened but platforms five and six remain closed.
The service affected was the 10:55 South Eastern Trains service to Robertsbridge in Kent. Trains were diverted to London Victoria or London Bridge.
Transport for London said the Underground station was closed for about 15 minutes before reopening.
Vincenzo Minore, who was a passenger on the train, said: “There was panic – you are sitting on a train and hear a blast and see a lot of lights and don’t know what it was.”
He said there were about 30 to 40 people on the platform at the time of the blast and it took a few seconds until people realized what was going on.
He added that as people were running in different directions, it took about 15 minutes to evacuate the platform.
Annika Anwary, who works in the station and saw the fire, said, “There were quite a lot of flames and flashing lights. People were just all running out of there. Most of them had already left by the time I came up. They tried to stay calm but there were definitely people running.”
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