One of London's main railway stations was evacuated Sunday morning after a fire broke out on a train at a platform.
Passengers were ordered to leave Charing Cross after the blaze started in the front carriage of one of the trains inside.
Firefighters were called to the mainline station at 10.52am, with five fire engines dispatched to the scene.
Officers were able to deal with the fire quickly, but it also caused smoke damage to a live wire and the hotel next door.
Marketing worker Jacob Lovie, 22, was waiting for a train to London Bridge when he heard what sounded like an explosion.
He told MailOnline: 'I was sitting on the platform and there was this loud screech and a big bang. Smoke went everywhere and a few people were screaming.
'It looked like a train hadn't braked properly and had gone into the big buffer at the end of the track.
'People were jogging quite calmly to the exit and the alarms were going off. I was outside when the first police car came and told everyone to move away.
'I didn't see anyone hurt but there was a big bang and it was still on fire afterwards. It looked as though the fire was more on the platform and the building around it than the actual locomotive.
'The staff were clearing everyone out very quickly so it hit people more when they got outside the station and everyone was like "woah". There was one woman who looked really shaken up.'
The six-platform station between Trafalgar Square and the River Thames is a main terminal for trains from Kent, Sussex and south east London and handles almost 40 million passengers a year.
Rail operator Southeastern said there were delays of more than two hours on some services as they were diverted to other stations, including London Bridge and Victoria.
The station remained closed until after midday and at that time a Southeastern spokesman could not confirm when it would re-open.
'There was a fire reported on a train at 10.52,' a London Fire Brigade spokesman told MailOnline.
Credit: Dailymail.co.uk
