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Mumbai monorail rescue: Passenger recounts being ‘suffocated’
“Passengers were patient. The train had many senior citizens and kids, and they were facing difficulties,” says passenger
A passenger rescued from the Mumbai monorail that was stuck for more than three hours on Tuesday said the people inside were “mostly patient”, but the senior citizens and children panicked in particular.
According to the eyewitness, the main problem that the stranded passengers suffered with inside the coaches was “suffocation”
"Passengers were patient. The train had many senior citizens and kids, and they were facing difficulties... Suffocation was the main problem inside the train," the passenger told ANI.
Another passenger told the news agency that at least 500 people were on the train, and the rescue operation took an hour to start.
"I was in the train from 5:30 PM. The rescue operation started after 1 hour. There were at least 500 passengers in the train. This train arrived after a gap of 30 minutes, so the entire train was overloaded with passengers," the passenger said.
All 582 passengers were rescued in an operation that lasted more than three hours.
What did the preliminary inquiry find?
A Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) spokesperson said that preliminary checks revealed that the monorail became stranded due to the rise in total weight beyond capacity due to overcrowding.
"Preliminary checks revealed that due to overcrowding, the total weight of the train rose to around 109 metric tonnes, which exceeded its designed capacity of 104 metric tonnes. This excess weight caused a break in the mechanical contact between the power rail and the current collector, cutting off the electricity supply required to run the train,’’ the spokesperson said.
MMRDA immediately dispatched a team of technicians to the site and, as per SOP, deployed another mono to tow the stalled mono. Normally, in such situations, the stalled train is towed to the nearest station. However, because of the excess weight, it could not be towed and therefore, a rescue operation had to be carried out with the help of the Fire Brigade, said the spokesperson
The spokesperson said that overcrowding was triggered by the closure of the Indian Railways Harbour Line owing to heavy rainfall in Mumbai. Despite repeated efforts by security personnel to regulate boarding and prevent excessive crowding, the surge in commuter demand overwhelmed the system.
It is important to note that the Mumbai Monorail is a low-capacity transit system, intended to serve specific corridors and not designed for sudden high-volume loads akin to suburban railways or metro systems, the spokesperson added
