Thousands of metro commuters were left stranded at various stations on Jehangirpuri-HUDA City Centre line after a train broke down in the tunnel between Central Secretariat and Udyog Bhawan stations during the morning rush hour today.
The incident happened around 9.24 AM, when an eight-coach metro train going to HUDA City Centre, on Delhi Metro's busy Yellow Line, faced technical problem in the middle of the tunnel between the two stations, forcing authorities to evacuate 1,791 passengers, including women and children a senior Delhi Metro official said.
Panicky commuters even forced open the emergency door to come out on the tracks and started to walk towards the Central Secretariat before they were escorted to safety by the metro staff.
The DMRC has formed a three-member committee to find out the causes of failure and to suggest evacuation procedures in the underground tunnel.
The train services were badly affected and remained suspended for about an hour-and-half, causing inconvenience to the commuters and office-goers who were forced to frantically search for other modes of transport to reach their destination. The disruption led to bunching of trains on the corridor, which was finally cleared only by the evening.
"The train came to a halt at 9.24 AM suddenly after its emergency brakes were applied automatically due to some technical reason. The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation's (DMRC) Operations Control Centre (OCC) and train staff attempted to troubleshoot and restart the train but they failed," said Anuj Dayal, Executive Director (Corporate Communications).
Giving the sequence of event, Dayal said, by 9.37 AM the operation's managers decided to evacuate a total of 1,791 passengers, who were onboard the snag-hit train by using another train which was behind it.
But the metro authorities had to dropped their plans as commuters forced open the emergency door and came out on the tracks. They started to move towards the Central Secretariat, Dayal said, they were evacuated by metro staffs.
"As some passengers had entered into the other adjacent tracks, that is on HUDA City Centre and Jehangirpuri line, they were evacuated by the help of metro staff which took around an hour.
All the 1,791 passengers including women and children were brought safely to Central Secretariat metro station, Dayal said.
There was utter chaos at the metro stations between Udyog Bhawan and Green Park as there were no metro services and people were stranded without any information.
