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Gare de l'Est in Paris: train services stopped
Photo: THOMAS SAMSON / AFP
Arsonists paralyzed the Gare de l'Est in Paris on Tuesday.
Rail traffic to Germany, among others, was interrupted for the whole day after a fire in a cable duct in the middle of the morning rush hour, as announced by the French railway SNCF.
There were numerous train cancellations and delays.
"This is an unacceptable act of vandalism," said Anne-Marie Palmier from the rail network operator SNCF Réseau to journalists in the Ostbahnhof.
According to the police, the arsonists broke open a cable duct in Vaires-sur-Marne east of Paris early in the morning and set fire to the cables.
48 cables were damaged, Palmier said.
Without these cables, which transmit signals to the signal boxes, safe train traffic is not possible.
All train traffic at the Gare de l'Est was therefore stopped at least until the end of operations on Tuesday, it said.
It is still unclear whether operations can resume on Wednesday, according to French Transport Minister Clément Beaune.
According to Deutsche Bahn, the ICE trains between Paris and Frankfurt am Main or Stuttgart were largely canceled.
Individual ICE trains started and ended in Strasbourg instead of Paris.
In addition to the trains to Germany, TGV express trains, the TER regional trains and line P of the Parisian local trains Transilien were also affected by the disruption.
Some TGV trains have been diverted to the nearby Gare du Nord.
Prosecutor determined
Trains to eastern France depart from Gare de l'Est, one of the six major Paris train stations, as well as international connections to Germany and Luxembourg, for example.
According to the SNCF, almost 28 million people traveled there last year.
The public prosecutor's office in Meaux initiated investigations into property damage and endangerment.
wit/AFP