The Channel Tunnel has reopened a limited service on Eurostar trains after a 16-hour fire raged inside the rail link between Britain and France on Thursday.

Eurotunnel said the first freight train set off from England before midnight on Friday night and was followed by an empty shuttle train just after 1am.

It said Eurostar trains resumed at 6am on Saturday morning.

However, just one tunnel has reopened with both truck shuttle and Eurostar trains to operate a limited service.

The tunnel where the fire took place will remain closed while French authorities carry out an investigation into the cause of the blaze, which started on a Folkestone to Calais train around seven miles from the French end.

A statement issued by Eurotunnel said:"Having carried out a comprehensive technical inspection of the infrastructure in the south rail tunnel, and having sent empty test shuttles through, Eurotunnel announces that Channel Tunnel traffic resumes."

But passengers hoping to take their cars through the tunnel will have to wait.

A tunnel spokeswoman said: "We are giving priority to the truck shuttles and Eurostar passengers. At the moment we don't know when the car shuttles will start again."

The blaze was finally extinguished on Friday morning after hundreds of firefighters fought through the night to bring it under control.

The tunnel closure caused transport chaos on both sides of the Channel, with dozens of passengers stranded and lorries backed up for hours from Dover and Calais.

Lorry driver Leslie Boon, from south Wales, said: "It was just hell dealing with fire, next minute everyone started jumping up panicking and what happened then - the wrong door opened.

"Someone opened the left hand door and I was pushed out really, out of the wrong door, and I ended up on the tracks.

"It was hot, very hot. I could not see nothing. There was this guy hanging around me as well. He was pulling me and I thought it was the end, but I came to an exit, which I was very surprised was open.

"I got into an escape tunnel and I ran for about one kilometre up the main tunnel and that's when the emergency services come down and they said that there was no point running this way because there's too much traffic running down this tunnel.

"I never been through an experience like it."

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