Editorial | Line of inquiry needs to show what is going wrong with the MTR
- Unhappy passengers are entitled to ask questions about Hong Kong’s railway operator following second serious incident in less than a month
Hong Kong’s railway operator is in the news for the wrong reasons again. Some 1,500 passengers were evacuated yesterday morning through a tunnel after an MTR train broke down in the second serious incident in less than a month.
The incident does nothing for the reputation of the MTR Corporation, and raises questions about what has gone wrong with both the rail system and its management.
Photographs showed passengers leaving the stricken rush-hour train on the Tseung Kwan O line. Initial investigations found couplings connecting the sixth and seventh compartments had malfunctioned, triggering the safety protection system and halting the service near Tseung Kwan O station.
A Post photographer, who was on the train, said some people fell over when it stopped abruptly. Passengers were stranded for about 20 minutes before being evacuated from an emergency exit at the front of the train. The MTR Corp said a full investigation would be carried out, but stressed there was no derailment.
The public needs no reminder of the derailment last month that saw the doors of a train ripped off and wedged inside a glass-panelled platform at Yau Ma Tei station.
The evacuation procedure was then called into question when hundreds of passengers fled along the tracks while services were not fully suspended, in a situation described as “totally undesirable” by the rail operator.