LRT door opens while travelling from Bukit Panjang to Senja

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LRT door opens while travelling from Bukit Panjang to Senja


A student who was on board the train says it was “moving slowly” and jerked abruptly before coming to a stop. “When it jerked, the door unexpectedly opened."

Posted 22 Jan 2016 22:38 Updated 23 Jan 2016 04:14



SINGAPORE: Not only was the Bukit Panjang LRT system hit by a five-hour service disruption on Friday, a door on one of its train carriages flew open while the train was moving.

Dilla Damitra, a 16-year-old student who was on her way to school, tweeted a photo of the incident.

She said at about 6.45am the train which was “moving slowly” from Bukit Panjang toward Senja station jerked abruptly before coming to a stop. “When it jerked, the door unexpectedly opened,” she said. “No one saw it coming. Luckily, no one was standing by the door at that point in time.”

She also said the people around her appeared to be in a "shocked state”, adding that this is the first time she has witnessed a situation like this.

Dilla added that when they were in between the stations, a fellow commuter tried to use the phone on the LRT to call for assistance but that did not seem to work. A teacher on board use her mobile phone to contact SMRT to alert them and the incident was resolved about 10 minutes later.

Responding to queries from Channel NewsAsia, SMRT’s vice-president of Corporate Information and Communications, Patrick Nathan said: "When our staff was alerted to the incident, he quickly boarded the affected train-car to check that passengers were safe, before closing the door and driving the train back to the station."

Another student on board the train, Nurul Nadhirah, said the malfunctioning door “opened and closed repeatedly” despite assistance from an SMRT staff.

Nurul, who emailed a photo of the incident to Channel NewsAsia, said a teacher tried repeatedly to access a phone in the emergency box but failed to do so as it was "pretty hard to open". They were only successful when the student herself attempted to open it, only for them to find the phone line not working.

"If i did not tried my best to open the box, we would have been stuck there for quite a long time until the next train arrived," she said.

“We are still traumatised by the incident,” Nurul added, saying it was dangerous, as people could have fallen out.

SMRT added that it is currently investigating the incident.

- CNA/xk


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