‘I thought my heart would stop’

Commuters on a Mumbai monorail were trapped for 90 minutes with no ventilation, leading to panic and medical emergencies before rescue.

MUMBAI: “I was close to having a heart attack inside the train,” was how Amey Bane, a corporate employee working in Lower Parel, summed up the experience. Bane is not a regular monorail commuter. “I live in Ghatkopar and six of us decided to take the monorail, as some of them lived in Chembur, where the monorail travels,” said Bane. “Look at my shirt, it’s drenched in sweat as we were trapped inside with no ventilation for over an hour.”

The monorail was stranded between Bhakti Park and Mysore Colony stations and passengers were rescued by the Mumbai fire brigade (Raju Shinde/ HT Photo)

Desperate, 582 commuters waited 90 minutes before the first of them could be pulled out. With no lights or proper ventilation, they tried to break the windows, gasping for air. “We were desperately calling all the contacts we could, including the emergency numbers like 100 and 102. We got through but it still took a long time to be rescued,” said Bane.

As the train tilted dangerously, commuters positioned themselves on the other side, as a counterbalance, so that it wouldn’t topple and crash to the ground. “This is the first and last time I take the monorail,” swore Asif Shaikh, 40, who works in a private factory and was travelling home to Mankhurd.

“From Sewri, I took the local train to Wadala, and from there I boarded the monorail. I was going to alight at Chembur and take an auto to Mankhurd,” recalls Shaikh, who claims several people in the train fainted as rescue operations were underway.

Commuters who were brought out appeared weak and were carefully escorted for first aid. Anand Mahato, 56, a cancer patient, said, “I was afraid and my blood pressure dropped. We started from Parel. Thankfully, someone managed to break a window and I was able to breathe a little better,” he said.