All connections between Paris Montparnasse station and the South West were interrupted late Sunday afternoon following an accident on a construction site at Massy-Palaiseau station, in Essonne.
An engineer was buried in a landslide.
He was found dead.
The SNCF interrupted Sunday afternoon all its connections between Paris Montparnasse and the South-West before a partial resumption in the evening, because of a landslide on a construction site at the station of Massy-Palaiseau, in the 'Essonne, which caused the death of an engineer. At the end of the afternoon, an engineer from SNCF Réseau was buried during a landslide near the tracks on the construction site of a bridge at Massy-Palaiseau in Essonne.
The executive was still wanted on Sunday evening and a judicial investigation was opened, announced the Minister for Transport Jean-Baptiste Djebbari, who visited the site.
The investigation was opened to search for the causes of death, Evry prosecutor Caroline Nisand told AFP.
"All our thoughts for our 55-year-old railway colleague, an infrastructure maintenance agent, who died buried in his construction site," Sud-Rail reacted in a tweet.
All our thoughts for our 55-year-old railway colleague, an infrastructure maintenance agent, who died buried in his construction site in Massy.
Condolences for his family, friends and colleagues. # Montparnasse
- SUD-Rail PSE (@SUDRailPSEoffic) July 25, 2021
Traffic resumed almost normally
A spokesperson for the SNCF confirmed to AFP that following a subsidence of land near the tracks on the construction site of a bridge in Massy, the emergency services had requested an interruption of TGV traffic . In the evening, the Minister for Transport announced that traffic had resumed. "We have been able to restart the traffic and in particular to re-implement the high speed tunnel. Tomorrow traffic will be more or less normal on the entire network, in particular the southwest and Atlantic networks", explained Jean -Baptiste Djebbari to the press near the scene of the accident.
All destinations from Paris Montparnasse had been interrupted and travelers to the South-West invited to postpone their trip. Alternative routes have been proposed to and from Brittany but with the risk of major delays according to the SNCF which invited travelers to also postpone these trips on Sunday evening.
On Twitter, several passengers said they were stranded on trains.
An AFP journalist traveling in a TGV to Paris Montparnasse affected by the disruption explained that people were very calm, resigned and patient, listening to the captain detail the information around the incident as it unfolded. evening.
His train left at 9 p.m., nearly three hours late.
"A counter is provided for any correspondence, accommodation in hotels and catering," he said on his arrival in Paris.
The buried engineer is dead
According to the Essonne firefighters, the collapse took place in a drilling site of more than thirty meters, near the railway tracks. The environment close to the site is very "unstable" and "difficult to access" due in particular to the heavy rainfall in recent days. The deceased victim was buried.
"A tragedy occurred on this site. A landslide while work was underway on the RER C and D lines occurred a little earlier in the afternoon and buried a manager, an engineer from SNCF Network, for which research is still underway under difficult conditions, "said Jean-Baptiste Djebarri in the evening. The Essonne prefecture tweeted that it had activated the departmental operational center for the management of the consequences of the accident.