A facility and construction material from a quarry belonging to a construction group were destroyed during the night from Sunday to Monday by fires, probably intentional according to the company, very close to the site of an act of vandalism on the LGV line, near Valence.
For the moment, ongoing investigations have not made it possible to establish a link between these catastrophes that affected a quarry belonging to the Cheval group, which works at a locally disputed junction of the A7 motorway, and the sabotage of the cables on the LGV line, a source close to the matter told AFP on Monday.
The group assures that its materials processing building, in the heart of the quarry, whose limits border the railway line, as well as five construction machines “parked several hundred meters apart” were set on fire, with damage “estimated at several million euros.”
Interrupted traffic
The place, in the town of Saint-Marcel-lès-Valence, is located less than 200 meters from a small concrete room located on the edge of the tracks of the Southeast high-speed line (LGV), which one or more unknown persons also set on fire during the night, a catastrophe that burned 16 fiber optic cables connected to the railway network, according to the SNCF.
These cable layoffs caused cancellations or breakdowns in a hundred TGVs. Rail traffic resumed at the end of the afternoon and “more or less normal traffic” will resume from 9 p.m., then “totally normal” on Tuesday, announced Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot.
Source: BFM TV
