9/11/08 Attack On Chunnel Train Between France and England? UPDATED

Fire started on lorry (1) just before 1500 BST on train from Folkestone to Calais. Lorry drivers heard series of explosions. They broke windows (2) to get out of amenity car. Altogether 32 people, including seven Britons, were evacuated into service tunnel (3).

UPDATED AT TOP: It looks to me as if parts of this story are, possibly, being disappeared. An anonymous commenter left me a quote from a CNN story which included the following sentence:
"“There was a burning lorry and a series of explosions — about 20 of them,” he told Le Parisien newspaper."

When I looked the story up on Google, here's what I found.

The story that Google linked to included no reference to explosions.

However, the original CNN story still exists here on a page called FindTarget/CNN. And, here's the story quoted:



Earlier on Friday truckers described their lucky escape from the blaze in which they had to smash windows to escape from the train after the doors jammed shut.
"There was a burning lorry and a series of explosions -- about 20 of them," Patrick Lejein, 50, from Bruges in Belgium, told Le Parisien newspaper.
"Everything was exploding around us -- tyres, fuel tanks, and then there was this smoke which prevented us from seeing and breathing properly."
Lejein added: "The door of our carriage was locked, impossible to open. We had to save ourselves by smashing a window with a hammer.
"We escaped from the train through this window. It was at that moment that we panicked the most. We imagined ourselves trapped there. We really were very lucky."


There have been so many questionable incidents recently that I think we must recap:

The other evening, I was sitting in a park with my daughter, and suddenly a fighter jet came roaring over our heads. It had been scrambled to fly a mission above Disneyland. I watched as it circled several times.

This was a regular occurrence in the couple years after 9/11. I got very used to the roar of fighter jets over Disneyland, over ballgames, and over my offices in Burbank near the movie studios.

I got used to being told to clear our of the office because there had been report of a possible attack.But, in recent years, things have, seemingly, calmed down, and I haven't heard the roar of fighter jets for quite some time.

But, have things really calmed down? No, they have not. Not in the least.

Just in the past few weeks, we have seen a homeless Muslim man check into a posh hotel with a pound of cyanide. For what purpose we will never know, because the guy ended up dead, thank God, before he could put his poison to use.

We have seen an Egyptian man build and test an unmanned drone, on Long Island, NY, capable of carrying a 600 lb. payload of chemical/biological weapons.We have seen men convicted in the UK for trying to kill the Queen and members of the Royal Family.

We have seen a man chanting Allah Akbar on a Philadelphia subway train, as he methodically showed his three year old boy how to kill Infidel pigs, by burying a hammer in the head of his victim.

And then, there were the unidentified men in St. Louis, who decided to go into work on their day off and play with the chemical nitroaniline. They ended up beoming poisoned, which caused them to turn blue. Over the next few hours, they began showing up at the hospital, causing two facilities to go on complete lockdown.

Additionally, as we know, Iran is speeding along to their goal; creating the Apocalypse so that the Mahdi (Isamic Messiah) will return to establish Islam througout the Earth.

So, we can not forget, because, while we have avoided another 9/11, it isn't for lack of trying on the part of the followers of Allah.

They would still like nothing better than to kill us, to sacrifice us to their bloodthirsty god.

We can not forget because they keep reminding us.



The rest of this post is from 9/12/08

Yesterday, (yes, on 9/11) I read of a fire that broke out on the "Chunnel" train which goes underneath the channel stretching between France and England.

A fire on 9/11, huh? I wondered if it could have been terror-related. However, the news as of yesterday was very spare on details. And so, I did not post on the story.

Now, we find that the drivers of the train report having heard multiple explosions. This bit of information seems to have driven officials to proclaim the incident

NOT TERROR-RELATED!

Got it. Thanks. Explosions = not terror-related.

Check.





It was carrying the chemical phenol, a toxic product used by the pharmaceutical industry.
Even more worrying, the overturned truck/lorry reportedly contained phenol, a deadly chemical that isn't allowed to be transported through the tunnel. The people who are reportedly in the hospital for smoke inhalation could have inhaled this chemical as it burned. According to Wikipedia, the toxic chemical was used in the Second World War at Auschwitz as a means of rapid execution. Seeing as the fire happened on September 11th, there are some obvious concerned about whether this was truly an accident.



From the BBC:



Thousands of passengers hoping to travel through the Channel Tunnel face further disruption after a fire.

Both the tunnel operator Eurotunnel and Eurostar have said passengers with travel plans for Friday night and the weekend should find alternative routes.

The tunnel was closed after fire broke out on a freight train about seven miles from Calais on Thursday.

Thirty-two people on board were led to safety. Fourteen had suffered minor injuries, including smoke inhalation.

The 16-hour blaze was put out on Friday morning.

The source of the blaze has not yet been identified but French officials say a lorry carrying chemicals, which is understood to have overturned on the freight train, was close to the seat of the fire.

It was carrying the chemical phenol, a toxic product used by the pharmaceutical industry.

Eurotunnel chairman Jacque Gounon - who earlier said they hoped to return to half capacity during Friday - said the north tunnel, where the fire took place, would be closed for several weeks.

The BBC's Europe editor, Mark Mardell, said Mr Gounon would not speculate on the cause of the fire, saying only that nothing had been ruled out or in.

He added an investigation could only begin once the affected area had cooled down enough to enable the removal of the train.

France's transport minister Dominique Bussereau told French radio station Europe-1 the cause appeared to be "something accidental".

Exhausting conditions

The blaze broke out yesterday just before 1500 BST on a train carrying lorries from Folkestone to Calais.

Thirty-two people, including seven Britons, were evacuated to the service tunnel and a train ferried them to France. More than 300 French and British firefighters tackled the blaze overnight and some 27 vehicles were affected.

Chief Fire Officer Bill Feeley, of Kent Fire and Rescue Service, said a large crew had been needed because of the difficult and tiring conditions and would remain in place until the emergency services were satisfied the fire was completely extinguished.

A French police spokesman said the main seat of the fire was extinguished at 0700 BST after burning for more than 16 hours.

Firefighters then spent two hours smothering minor fires nearby, he said.

Kent Fire and Rescue Service has now said they were "scaling down" their efforts. Two fire engines were still at the scene with 12 firefighters and specialist crews, a spokeswoman said.

"The bi-national status of the operation was lifted at midday so it is now a French incident," she said.



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More from William.