The Taipei City MRT’s Neihu and Muzha lines were suspended yesterday afternoon after a sudden power outage, forcing about 700 passengers to walk down the elevated rail lines to return to station platforms after trains stopped between stations.
The lines are scheduled to resume operating at 6am today. The suspension of services yesterday was the first serious system failure on the Neihu Line since it began operations last Saturday.
A total of 21 trains running on the two lines came to a halt at 3:27pm after the control center detected a warning signal indicating a malfunction in the power supply, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) general manager Tsay Huei-sheng (蔡輝昇) said.
PHOTO: FANG PIN-CHAO, TAIPEI TIMES
The malfunction caused power to be cut off and the whole Brown Line was shut down, Tsay said. The company began evacuating passengers according to emergency procedures at 3:44pm after it failed to restore power, he said.
TRTC said only three trains stopped between stations — one between Neihu District’s Gangqian and Wende stations; one between Zhongshan District’s Dazhi and Jiannan stations; and one between Zhongshan District’s Zhongshan Junion High School and Songshan Airport stations.
However, Taipei Times reporters saw another train stopped between Gangqian and Wende stations, and trains stopped in both directions north of Zhongshan Junior High School Station. The TRTC declined to comment on the discrepancy.
PHOTO: FANG PIN-CHAO, TAIPEI TIMES
All passengers, including those on the trains that stopped between stations, were evacuated by 4:20pm, and the company provided free shuttle buses along the lines to take them to their destinations, Tsay said, adding that the TRTC had sent staff to evacuate passengers as soon as possible.
Some passengers from the stranded trains, however, slammed the TRTC for failing to respond to the incident promptly, leaving some waiting inside the cars for more than half an hour without air conditioning or any explanation.
“Nobody told us what happened and we were stuck inside the cars without air conditioning. Their emergency response ability is a joke,” a female passenger complained after walking back to Zhongshan Junior High School Station.
PHOTO: LU CHUN-WEI, TAIPEI TIMES
STRANDED
A Taipei Times editor, who was in the stranded train near Gangqian Station, said that passengers arriving at the station prior to the power shutdown were not able to board or alight because the doors did not open. The train then moved off and stopped a few seconds later well beyond the station. After a few moments, it started again, but then lurched to a halt, pitching passengers forward.
An announcement came over the loudspeaker that there had been an incident and that passengers should wait. Announcements, repeated every few minutes, were in Mandarin only. Several announcements were made over the next 20 minutes requesting that passengers wait “patiently.” At 25 minutes, the power and air conditioning suddenly went off. There was no announcement as to how long passengers would be expected to wait. After 30 minutes, and after receiving no instructions from MRT staff, three male passengers pried open the doors and stepped outside.
A female MRT employee ran up to the carriage from Gangqian Station. The men asked if the passengers should get off and walk to the station. She said “yes” in an exasperated tone, as if this were obvious, despite the fact that the last instruction to be issued was “wait patiently” on their own.
The staffer disappeared and no one else came to assist. Passengers alighted from the carriage, helping the infirm and elderly, before walking slowly between the two tracks back to the station. The sheer number of passengers meant that it took at least 20 minutes for them to reach Gangqian Station, no more than 200m away.
APOLOGY
Later yesterday, Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) apologized for the inconvenience the incident had caused the public, and demanded that Taipei city’s Department of Rapid Transit System solve the false alarms and malfunctions that have hindered the Neihu Line since its operation began less than a week ago.
“We are prioritizing our efforts on fixing the system’s false alarms and stabilizing it in the shortest time,” Hau said.
Hau acknowledged the problematic system integration of the Neihu and Muzha lines could be the reason behind the frequent malfunctions and the shutdown of the lines yesterday, but said the city government did not plan to halt the operation of the two lines to fix the problem.
The Neihu Line, an extension of the Muzha Line, was designed to be compatible with the Muzha Line’s Matra system. The Neihu Line’s builder, Montreal-based Bombardier, sent software engineers to inspect the computer systems and improve the detection of false alarms last month.
Hau said the city government would ask Bombardier for compensation according to contract if the company fails to solve the system malfunctions.
Department Commissioner Tom Chang (常歧德) said his department and Bombardier were working to fix the problems and seeking to have the lines resume operation as soon as possible.
In compensation, the firm gave free one-day MRT passes and bus tickets to passengers who had to walk along the tracks to get back to the stations. The Taipei City’s Transportation Department will continue to provide free shuttle buses along the lines today, Tsay said.
LONG FLIGHT: The jets would be flown by US pilots, with Taiwanese copilots in the two-seat F-16D variant to help familiarize them with the aircraft, the source said The US is expected to fly 10 Lockheed Martin F-16C/D Block 70/72 jets to Taiwan over the coming months to fulfill a long-awaited order of 66 aircraft, a defense official said yesterday. Word that the first batch of the jets would be delivered soon was welcome news to Taiwan, which has become concerned about delays in the delivery of US arms amid rising military tensions with China. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said the initial tranche of the nation’s F-16s are rolling off assembly lines in the US and would be flown under their own power to Taiwan by way
OBJECTS AT SEA: Satellites with synthetic-aperture radar could aid in the detection of small Chinese boats attempting to illegally enter Taiwan, the space agency head said Taiwan aims to send the nation’s first low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite into space in 2027, while the first Formosat-8 and Formosat-9 spacecraft are to be launched in October and 2028 respectively, the National Science and Technology Council said yesterday. The council laid out its space development plan in a report reviewed by members of the legislature’s Education and Culture Committee. Six LEO satellites would be produced in the initial phase, with the first one, the B5G-1A, scheduled to be launched in 2027, the council said in the report. Regarding the second satellite, the B5G-1B, the government plans to work with private contractors
‘OF COURSE A COUNTRY’: The president outlined that Taiwan has all the necessary features of a nation, including citizens, land, government and sovereignty President William Lai (賴清德) discussed the meaning of “nation” during a speech in New Taipei City last night, emphasizing that Taiwan is a country as he condemned China’s misinterpretation of UN Resolution 2758. The speech was the first in a series of 10 that Lai is scheduled to give across Taiwan. It is the responsibility of Taiwanese citizens to stand united to defend their national sovereignty, democracy, liberty, way of life and the future of the next generation, Lai said. This is the most important legacy the people of this era could pass on to future generations, he said. Lai went on to discuss
MISSION: The Indo-Pacific region is ‘the priority theater,’ where the task of deterrence extends across the entire region, including Taiwan, the US Pacific Fleet commander said The US Navy’s “mission of deterrence” in the Indo-Pacific theater applies to Taiwan, Pacific Fleet Commander Admiral Stephen Koehler told the South China Sea Conference on Tuesday. The conference, organized by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), is an international platform for senior officials and experts from countries with security interests in the region. “The Pacific Fleet’s mission is to deter aggression across the Western Pacific, together with our allies and partners, and to prevail in combat if necessary, Koehler said in the event’s keynote speech. “That mission of deterrence applies regionwide — including the South China Sea and Taiwan,” he