Misleading announcements and rumours of derailment cause panic among travellers
Thousands of passengers were inconvenienced after suburban services collapsed due to a mock drill to deal with derailment during evening rush hour on Saturday. Pic/Hanif Patel
A mock drill by Western Railway to learn how to deal with derailment of a local train, led to panic across the city. Thousands of passengers were inconvenienced after suburban services collapsed as there were announcements at stations of trains switching platforms, putting the whole system at peril. Additionally, with no confirmation from authorities, rumours of a derailment on the line led to further panic among Mumbaikars.
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According to a source, a message went around stating that a local train had derailed at Vasai near platform 2. All passengers were asked to get off and change trains from different platforms, leading to further inconvenience.
Divisional Railway Manager Satyakumar and his team were not immediately reachable and later responded to mid-day saying it was a mock drill, while Western Railway headquarters were unable to confirm the incident during the operation. “We need to test the alertness of the system periodically,” Kumar said. Western Railway chief public relations officer, Sumit Thakur, said, “It is important to test how well the system functions. The drill was successful without any error. We were able to do it before the rush hour set in and restore all services to normalcy.”
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