Paris transport crippled by widespread power outages and technical failures

Public transport in the Île-de-France region faced severe disruptions on Thursday, causing significant hardship for commuters. The Gare de l'Est in Paris was completely paralyzed by a power outage, halting all train traffic in and out of the station from 6 p.m. until 10 p.m. This affected TGV INOUI services, with delays ranging from 20 minutes to 1.5 hours. The RER network was also heavily impacted. RER A experienced slowdowns due to a fire near the tracks, while RER B faced disruptions from a broken-down train. RER C saw delays because of a TER train failure, and RER D suffered from train cancellations and slowdowns due to another breakdown. RER E was entirely shut down until 10 p.m. due to a power cut in the Magenta sector. Transilien lines J, P, and R also reported significant issues, including a fire, a security alert, and power outages. Tramway line T4 was suspended, and T12 faced cancellations. Metro line 3 was affected by a switch failure. The widespread chaos left many travelers facing long waits and uncertain journeys.