Nineteen people were injured on the evening of October 15, 2026, when a minibus transporting heavy goods vehicle drivers collided with a train at the Eurotunnel loading platform in Coquelles, northern France, as workers prepared to board a Le Shuttle service.
Coquelles Terminal Collision Injures 19 Workers Near Channel Tunnel
The crash occurred on the evening of October 15, 2026, at the Eurotunnel terminal located in Coquelles, France. A minibus carrying heavy goods vehicle drivers collided with a train on the loading platform as the workers prepared to board a Le Shuttle service.
🚨 Accident sur le site d’Eurotunnel à CoquellesUn accident impliquant un minibus transportant des chauffeurs poids lourds en partance à bord d’une navette Le Shuttle s’est produit ce soir, au niveau du quai de chargement du site d’Eurotunnel.D’importants moyens ont été… pic.twitter.com/RW4p2opJDa
According to Pas-de-Calais Under Prefect Agathe Cury, the vehicle involved was a minibus transporting workers who were about to board Le Shuttle. All were men of different nationalities.
Cury noted that it was the first time an incident of this type has occurred on an Eurotunnel loading platform. Photographs published by the local newspaper La Voix du Nord depicted a small bus with front and side damage standing alongside a train amid a crowd of emergency responders.
Emergency Response and Patient Transport Across Northern France
Emergency services mobilized quickly following the crash. Cury stated that emergency respondents were dispatched within nine minutes from the initial report of the incident, operating under the authority of the prefect of Pas-de-Calais.
The rescue operation involved 55 firefighters, 25 teams from the mobile emergency and intensive care service, and approximately 20 border police officers. Two individuals, including the driver, sustained critical injuries and were airlifted by a helicopter-based medical team to the University Hospital in Lille.
The remaining 17 passengers were transported to regional hospitals in Helfaut, Calais, Boulogne, Montreuil-sur-Mer, and Dunkirk. Authorities confirmed that none of them are in critical condition.
Travel Impact and Cross-Channel Services
While emergency crews managed the scene, transport operations saw varied effects. Eurostar reported that an incident occurred several kilometers away from the Channel Tunnel and did not involve or impact its London services, though two Eurostar departures on the London-Paris route were subsequently canceled that evening.
Meanwhile, Evan Davis, who was travelling through the Eurotunnel to Calais during the incident, observed emergency vehicles concentrated on one platform while cars queueing up at check-in weren’t being held despite the collision.
Two trains were on either side of the platform. One was being loaded by heavy goods vehicles ahead of a cross-Channel journey, and another train that had previously been loaded was departing.
Cury, Pas-de-Calais Under Prefect