Eurostar should be running normally by Tuesday morning after power outage, SNCF says

The French national rail operator SNCF says it hopes Eurostar services will be full restored by Tuesday morning after a power outage forced the cancellation of at least 17 services to and from Brussels, Amsterdam and London.

"Some trains will take a detour route via the regular line to avoid the incident area," the passenger advice service SNCF Voyageurs said, without saying how many trains would be affected. 

The company still advises passengers to "postpone their trip if they can" but said they could also "exchange their tickets free of charge or request a full refund."

Multiple Eurostar trains were cancelled or significantly delayed on Monday due to a technical incident, creating chaos for passengers travelling to and from Paris with disruptions initially expected to run until the end of Monday.

SNCF blamed the disruption on a power outage near Moussy in the northeast of the country, which forced the closure of a critical section of the rail network north of Paris.

Furthermore, TGV lines in northern France were suspended until further notice.

The power failure first affected the lines at around 8 am, causing chaos by noon and requiring "major repairs" to fix.

Trains to and from the French capital's main Charles De Gaulle Airport were also affected, with all TGV lines to and from the airport suspended, Euronews learned.

The local RER trains were still operating, however. Furthermore, trains south, west and east of Paris seemed to be operating as scheduled.

The delays and cancellations caused mayhem at Paris Gare du Nord station, as there was no word about when train services would resume, and station announcements only repeated that some lines would be restored by the end of the day.

The widespread disruption on one of Europe's busiest international railway routes is happening during the peak summer travel season.

Neither Eurostar nor SNCF have given a reason for the power outage.

In June, Eurostar passengers faced days of major delays and cancellations after two people died on the track in France and then cables were stolen near Lille.

In March, Eurostar services were disrupted when an unexploded WWII bomb was found at Paris' Gare du Nord station.

And in July last year, the SNCF said it had been the victim of "several acts of malevolence" after fires were deliberately started along several high-speed lines, forcing service cancellations and impacting around 800,000 passengers.