Letter to the Financial Times: Emergency chaos exposes emergency response flaws (Newham Borough Liberal Democrats)

Newham Borough Liberal Democrats <info@libdems.org.uk>

Letter to the Financial Times: Emergency chaos exposes emergency response flaws

December 23, 2009 12:00 PM
Originally published by Sarah Ludford MEP

A lot of work is supposed to have gone on in the last decade on anti-terrorism and protection of critical infrastructure. The channel tunnel is surely on anybody's list of key routes. This time the cause of the disruption was supposedly snow; another time it could be criminal or terrorist sabotage.

It is therefore astonishing that, as you report in "Eurostar launches independent inquiry" (December 21), not only did passengers have to wait up to 16 hours to be evacuated but there was poor communication between Eurostar and Eurotunnel as train and channel tunnel operators respectively. Apparently Eurostar could not communicate directly with their own staff.

As a weekly Eurostar user who feels almost guiltily fortunate to have got back last Thursday night from Strasbourg, I have huge sympathy with the suffering travellers. I trust that the inquiry will look into all aspects of this massive failure.

But the British and French governments, the European Union authorities and national and European parliamentarians also have to learn lessons.

Instead of so much energy being devoted to inventing ever more intrusive ways to monitor, check and survey ordinary people in the name of counter-terrorism, considerably greater attention must be given to new arrangements to ensure that emergency protection and responses are a great deal more effective.

Yours sincerely,

Sarah Ludford MEP

(This letter was published by the Financial Times on 23 December 2009.)