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A cat named Lucky has been found alive in a Tube tunnel more than three days after escaping from her owner’s pet-carrier box at Green Park station.

Transport for London agreed to help Lucy Duff, 27, search for her cat, after her desperate plea was publicised by the Evening Standard.

Lucky, who fled onto the Victoria line tracks towards Oxford Circus when Ms Duff was changing trains on Sunday evening, was eating a mouse when discovered at around 3am today.

TfL had agreed to allow Ms Duff, from Clapham, to accompany a search team at 1am in the hope the cat, which she has had for seven years since rescuing her from abandonment in Leicester, would recognise her voice.

She stood at the end of the southbound platform and called out to Lucky, while a TfL worker searched the tracks. No trace of Lucky was found and Ms Duff, who had offered a £1,000 reward, went home.

But when TfL conducted a second search two hours later, Lucky was found in the southbound Victoria line tunnel between the two stations.

A TfL spokesman told the Standard: “We’re pleased to report that Lucky that cat was found safe and well in the early hours of Thursday morning by one of our track patrolmen.

“The RSPCA is taking care of Lucky while her owner is notified that she has been found. Lucky appears to be ‘feline’ fine. However, this is a reminder to customers to take extra care when travelling on the Tube with their pets.”

The spokesman said the search was able to be carried out as no maintenance was taking place on the line and it would cause no disruption.

He said that such cases were very rare and TfL decided to help because it was clear how much Lucky meant to Ms Duff, an analyst at a data science company.

Ms Duff had been returning home with Lucky after visiting her mother in Somerset when Lucky, a brown and white short-haired cat, got out of the carrier. She said Lucky was so frightened she fled onto the tracks.

Ms Duff told the Standard: “I can’t quite believe it. I woke up this morning tired and bleary-eyed after calling out to her for one-and-a-half hours. There were all these messages of congratulations. I didn’t understand as we didn’t catch her. Then I got a text from the RSPCA woman saying she had been called back around 4am.”

Lucky was this morning being checked by a RSPCA vet in Putney before being reunited with her owner. The search party involved Ms Duff, her boyfriend, a Tube supervisor, the RSPCA officer, two British Transport police and a contractor who was stationed at Oxford Circus.

“Lucky certainly lived up to her name,” Ms Duff said. “I can’t quite believe it. I thought it would be disastrous and I would never see her again - it’s so dangerous down there. It’s like something out of Mission Impossible, trying to find a cat in the Underground tunnels.”