SINGAPORE - Train service resumed at 5.30am on Wednesday (June
8) morning on the North-South and East-West lines but service
on the North-South line will be suspended from 11am, said operator
SMRT in its latest update on Facebook at 5.19am.
Trains are also operating at reduced speed this morning and
commuters were told to expect an average wait time of between five
and seven minutes on both lines, while they were also warned to
expect intermittent short delays throughout the day.
SMRT said that travel is free for all who are using both lines
on Wednesday, until normal service resumes.
Service on the North-South line, however, will be
halted from 11am to 4pm for engineers from the Land Transport
Authority (LTA) and SMRT to conduct further investigations and
determine the cause of the power trip.
A faulty train could have triggered a power surge which led to a
shut down of power across the entire North-South East-West Line MRT
network during the evening rush hour on Tuesday.
The disruption, which occurred after 7pm on Tuesday
evening, had caused an unprecedented delay on the two
lines.
It is the first time that services on both the North-South
and East-West Lines were affected at the same time, in what is
possibly the worst MRT breakdown Singapore has
experienced. Going by the scale of the breakdown and the time
it occured, it is estimated that more than 250,000 commuters may
have been affected.
Service on the two crowded lines was disrupted for more
than two hours, affecting thousands of commuters heading home.
Many had difficulty finding alternative transport as the crowd
swelled, even though free bus services were activated at the
affected stations.
Service on the North-South line resumed at 10.35pm, more
than three hours after the disruption which occurred after 7pm.
Service on East-West line resumed at slower speed after
9.30pm.
The disruption came just days after a track fault
disrupted service on the North-South MRT line that affected
thousands during the morning rush.
"A faulty train could have caused the power to
trip; arcing was observed on the underside of this train. The power
surge caused the protective relays across the entire North South
East West Lines network to be activated, leading to a shut-down of
power across the two lines," the Land Transport Authority (LTA)
said in a statement at 11.08pm.
"We will continue to comb through the system through the
night to see if there could be other faulty trains or other
causes," it said, adding that LTA engineers will be
working through the night with operator SMRT to recover train
services and ensure that services run properly on
Wednesday.
All passengers who were on board trains during the disruption
were safely detrained at station platforms. "All available bus
assets were activated across the whole island to provide free bus
service for affected commuters, with the police helping with crowd
control," said LTA.
LTA’s crisis management team, led by chief executive Chew
Men Leong, was at the Land Transport Operations Centre to lead the
recovery efforts, it said, adding that LTA engineers were
also at the incident site to assist SMRT’s recovery efforts.
LTA said it will launch a full investigation into
the cause of the incident. "We apologise for the inconvenience
caused to commuters."
SMRT, in a statement issued past midnight, said power trips
along the two MRT lines were detected from 6pm.
"These power trips were linked to the voltage protection circuit
of traction power, which is designed to safeguard the safety of
commuters at station platforms. Our engineers initially managed to
reset these power trips.” said Mr Lee Ling Wee, managing director,
SMRT Trains.
“But as we tried to identify the cause of the power fault, the
frequency and impact of power trips intensified. At 1915 hours, we
decided to detrain all passengers and suspend NSEWL train services
for safety reasons in order to isolate the cause of the
network-wide power trips," he added.
"Our preliminary assessment points to a possible power-related
equipment failure at substations or along the track, or the
undercarriage of a potential defective train which we are
investigating tonight. But we are not ruling out other
possibilities."
SMRT President and CEO Desmond Kuek said: "SMRT has mobilised
all engineering and technical staff to comprehensively check the
entire network and train fleet. SMRT and LTA engineers are working
round the clock to conduct tests, and sections of the network are
being isolated to pin point the fault.
"While it is still early to conclude the cause of the fault, we
are doing our utmost to recover the system with the view to resume
full train services as soon as possible. We deeply apologise for
the inconvenience caused to all our commuters.”
Transport Minister Lui Tuck Yew said in a Facebook post: "I am
extremely concerned with today’s incident. This is the first time
that services on both the North-South and East-West Lines were
affected at the same time. I am sorry that so many commuters
experienced massive disruptions to their journeys during the
evening peak hours."
In an earlier update, SMRT said it
was running tests on the North-South line to systematically
isolate the source of the power fault. On the East-West
line, SMRT engineers were "conducting tests
involving 10 trains at a time to check the entire line" after all
affected trains have reached the nearest MRT station and passengers
have been safely transferred to the platforms.
SMRT first tweeted about the disruption at about
7.15pm. Free bus services were made available at all
stations on both lines to serve the thousands of commuters
caught in the massive disruption.
But some commuters were still trying to
find alternative transport to get them home two hours after
the service disruption, with some bus stops and taxi
stands packed with the waiting crowd.
Banker Jon Yeo, 46, was on an East-West train headed west from
Tanjong Pagar when it ground to a halt at around 7.10pm. It was
stuck for close to 15 minutes with partial cabin lights and
air-conditioning. The lights and aircon came fully back after
that, but the train was still stationary.
"It moved for a bit, and then stopped again. "They finally gave
up and got us off at Redhill," he said. "All stations are
affected. They actually pulled the shutters down," an agitated Mr
Yeo added. Asked if he was going to wait for the free bus
services, he said: "No way, I'm not going to wait anymore."
Another banker, Prashanth Shankar 32, said he was at City Hall
station when the incident unfolded. "The announcement came only
after 15 minutes. A long line built up for the fare refund."
Seeing the chaos and sudden crowd build-up, Mr Shankar called
for his uncle to pick him up in his car. "The taxi lines were very
long too," he added. "There're a lot of frustrated people."
Stockbroker B C Cheong, 48, boarded the train at Outram, but it
started to act up soon. "The train blacked out, and stalled," he
said. "We got off at Buona Vista, then we waited for more than
half hour for the free bus but still no bus." He said: "So I
got on to a normal plying bus to Clementi and I am still waiting
for a bus to go back to Boon Lay." Mr Cheong added that SMRT's
recovery process was "poor" .
Communications personnal Eugene Mok, 30, took the North-East
line to Outram. When he got off, he walked right into the mayhem.
"There was no staff at Outram," he said. "We (commuters) were
like lost sheep."
He made his way to the nearest bus stop near Singapore General
Hospital, and found the bus and taxi lines were "so long". "So
I decided to walk to Bukit Merah side of SGH about 1.5km away to
try and get a bus. I'm still waiting at 8.30pm."
SMRT first tweeted about a traction power fault at about 7.15pm,
telling commuters to expect an additional 20 minutes of travelling
time between Clementi and Joo Koon stations, as well as between
Marina Bay and Yishun. But the fault later extended to all
stations along both lines.
Large crowds formed at bus stops outside the affected stations,
as commuters spilled out to find another way home.
Marketing communications manager Philip Pang, 43, waited
for about an hour outside Novena MRT for a taxi. At close
to 10pm, he was still waiting.
Ms Eunice Chiong, 22, said she was switching from the
Circle Line to North-South Line at the Bishan MRT station. A train
stopped at the Bishan MRT platform with its doors open from around
7pm to 7.20pm while commuters waited, the digital marketing
executive said. Then the lights in the train went dark just as they
heard an announcement that the MRT Line was down, and commuters
should take other transport.
The train passengers streamed out of the train onto the
platform. There was also an announcement that there will be free
shuttle buses, but no directions as to where they were.
At the bus stop near Bishan MRT, a woman told her that all
bus services were free, but she could not get on the buses as they
were too crowded. "The buses could not even close their doors
as there were too many people," Ms Chiong said.
Four buses came and went before she decided to walk to a
friend's house in Ang Mo Kio where she is waiting to get a lift
home to Woodlands.
Another commuter, who wants to be known only as Michelle,
reached Raffles Place MRT station at about 7.15pm.
She noticed that the queue for the train on the East-West
platform was "very very long". After a while, there was an
announcement that there was a power fault, and commuters were
requested to leave the station.
"People kept entering the station, because there was no one
managing the situation on the ground," said Michelle, 28, who is in
the banking industry. She estimated that there were about 300
people who were looking for alternative transport.
