Metro issues new guidelines for emergencies after tunnel chaos

Three days after a train broke down in a tunnel on a busy route leaving thousands of commuters stranded, the Delhi Metro on Friday came out with a fresh set of guidelines to deal with such emergencies following submission of a preliminary inquiry report into the incident.

After receiving the report into breakdown of a train on Yellow Line, DMRC managing director Mangu Singh issued the guidelines which include ensuring a secondary backup system, lighting and ventilation inside the trains during emergencies and evacuation of passengers if the problem cannot be resolved within 10 minutes. ‘In case passengers are stranded in the underground tunnel without lights and proper ventilation for more than 10 minutes, the Metro operational managers have been asked to initiate evacuation of passengers in the future,’ Singh said.

‘The tunnel lighting in the underground tunnel will be reoriented by the Metro electrical engineers so that a clear view of the underground passage is available to the commuters in an evacuation scenario,” Metro executive director (corporate communications) Anuj Dayal said.

On 11 June, an eight-coach metro train going to HUDA City Centre on Delhi Metro’s busy Yellow Line broke down in the middle of the tunnel between Central Secretariat and Udhyog Bhawan stations, giving a difficult time to over 1,791 passengers onboard the train and severely affecting metro services across the city during the morning rush hour.

The DMRC had appointed a three-member internal inquiry committee. Members of the inquiry committee included — executive director (rolling stock), executive director (safety) and general manager (operations).

As per the report, the emergency brakes of train were applied following a problem in the software of the communication system.