Passengers evacuated as power failure halts Metro near Rajajinagar

As many as 84 passengers were evacuated from a Namma Metro train on Monday afternoon after it stopped on the tracks following a power failure at the Yeshwantpur station.

The train was forced to halt between the Kuvempu Road and Rajajinagar stations. The Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (BMRCL) staff forcibly opened the doors of one of the coaches and evacuated the passengers in a 15-minute operation.

While some passengers took back their money and vacated the station, other passengers waited and continued their journey when power supply was restored.

The power failure disrupted services on the Metro’s Greenline from 1.03 pm to 1.53 pm, between Yeshwantpur and Mantri Square Sampige Road stations.

Passengers were guided out of the train to the side walk by trained staff of BMRCL. The sidewalk width is one metre and passengers walked on the sidewalk in a column led by the Metro staff. They had to walk a distance of about 200 metres as the train was forced to halt 200 metres from the Rajajinagar station.

“The passenger evacuation is done by experts. We are trained to handle such emergencies. In this case, there was no instance where we had to administer first aid. The evacuation was smooth and orderly,” BMRCL chief public relations officer Vasanth Rao told Deccan Herald.

Rao said that owing to power failure at Yeshwantpur station on Reach 3/3A, services were disrupted between Mantri Square Sampige Road station and Yeshwantpur station
.
“As per the standard operating procedure, evacuation of commuters is done within 15 minutes. A decision is taken to announce evacuation after taking approval from the GM (operations). Only one train was affected close to the Rajajinagar station,” Rao said.

According to Metro officials, on the entire line, on weekdays during peak hours, 25,000 to 28,000 people travel between the Nagasandra and Mantri Square Sampige Road stations, while on weekends 28,000 to 32,000 people travel between the two end stations.