Eurostar says passenger services between London and mainland Europe will resume on Sunday morning but is warning of delays of between 30 and 60 minutes because only one tunnel will be open.

Eurotunnel said it delayed restarting vehicle and freight services overnight because of "residue smoke" concerns.

No-one was hurt in the lorry fire at the French end of the north tunnel.

Eurostar - which operates services between Paris, London and Brussels - said 26 of its trains were cancelled on Saturday afternoon.

The alarm was raised when two CO2 detectors were triggered at 11:25 GMT.

Eurotunnel said a load on a lorry on board one of its trains, en route from the UK to France, had been "smouldering". Passengers were safely evacuated from trains in the tunnel, and the fire "was quickly brought under control by the emergency services", the company said on its Twitter account.

Firefighters examined the site but a Eurotunnel spokesman said it did not look like there was any significant damage.

During the day, however, at St Pancras station, Eurostar's London terminus, and in Paris, there were long queues of passengers after services were cancelled following the fire. At Folkestone, lines of lorries built up near the Eurotunnel entrance.

Eurotunnel had anticipated resuming services on Saturday night through its south tunnel, which was unaffected by the fire.

But in a tweet shortly before midnight, the company said it was "taking slightly longer than anticipated to recommence services, we need to be sure any residue smoke cleared completely before we do so".

(BBC)