Violence almost broke out among Eurotunnel passengers who were stuck in delays of up to four hours this afternoon.
The scene was described as 'carnage' after irate motorists waited in their cars in the blistering heat.
The severe delays are thought to have been caused by an air-conditioning problem which meant the number of Eurotunnel trains was reduced from 3-to-4 an hour to just one.
Amy Boyd, 35, said: “We were supposed to leave at 3.10.
"We’ve now been stuck waiting to go on the train for the past couple of hours.
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"They’ve just let a whole load of Flexiplus people on who had only been waiting for 15 minutes.
"I’ve got a three month old and a six year old. The dehydration issues are massive. We can’t make the decision to leave and come back tomorrow as we are blocked in.
"If only they could tell us “you will be stuck for three hours” we could have made an informed decision while at the terminal.
"Everyone is running the air con for their engines which is bonkers and the fumes my children are breathing in is horrendous.
"They say that the Flexiplus customers have paid to go through but I paid to leave at 3.10pm. I see all these SUVs going through and we are stuck.
“I was trying to be calm and reasonable but this is chaos. We don’t have asthma issues but anyone who does will be suffering.”
Lebby Eyres, speaking to Mirror Online, described the scene as 'carnage' and said violence almost broke out when some motorists tried to jump the queues.
She said: "We’ve been stuck at the Eurotunnel - we were supposed to leave at 2.50pm and we arrived an hour before that.
“When we arrived it said 30 minute delay, then that went to an hour, then an hour and a half, that went to two hours delay. That was when we were still in the terminal.
"They eventually called our letter (P), we’ve been through passport control, you get assigned a lane and you all queue up.
"We were P, there was still M, N and O waiting, they hadn’t even boarded.
"We were waiting on the tarmac in the blistering heat, everyone running their engines to keep their air con going.
"We were there for about two to two and a half hours, everyone was patient and staff were handing out water.
"Then one departure left, so they loaded on a few cars, we all waited for another 45 minutes to an hour, people were getting more irate, people were gathering around staff trying to find out what was happening, I was trying to find out what was going on.
"Then they turned the sprinkler on, they put this pipe out, there was almost a party atmosphere then with everyone cooling off.
"They opened two lanes for people who had not been there for very long and people were queue jumping to try and get in.
“They let people in with Flexiplus - people who paid extra. Those who were left on the tarmac was actually furious.
"It got to the edge of violence, people were banging on cars and trying to get them to stop.
“A staff member jumped in front of a car to try and get it to stop.
"They had people who were moving from their lane into that lane, we saw this old vintage car which had broken down earlier in the terminal but that just went straight past us.
"It was complete carnage at that point, the Eurotunnel staff had lost control."
