At least 80 passengers were evacuated from a train operating on the Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) system’s Wenhu Line after a carriage’s wheels were allegedly damaged by an unidentified obstacle, paralyzing services.
The incident occurred at 10:01am when a Nangang-bound train sounded an alarm and came to a halt after running over an obstacle between the Jiannan Road and Xihu stations, Taipei Mass Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said.
Passengers on the train said they heard a loud thud and saw smoke coming from the tracks.
TRTC said that that it parked another train alongside the train that had broken down to take the passengers back to Jiannan Road station, where they were asked to take shuttles operating between Donghu and Zhongxiao Fuxing stations.
Services were briefly resumed at 11:08am, but were halted again shortly afterward after the train operator failed to move the damaged train onto a pocket track.
The company later partially resumed services between Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center and Huzhou stations, and between Dazhi and Taipei Zoo stations.
As work to repair the damaged train was still unfinished by yesterday evening’s rush hour, the company offered shuttle services between Zhongxiao Fuxing and Donghu stations, and Zhongxiao Fuxing and Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center stations to serve commuters leaving work.
Due to the disruption, services between Wende and Huzhou stations were running every 12 minutes.
TRTC said that it would thoroughly investigate the cause of the incident.
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