Smoke sends wrong signal about metro

• Source: Global Times
• [10:40 July 12 2010]
• Comments

By Shen Weihuang

A "small mechanical problem" caused smoke to billow from Shaanxi Road South metro station on Saturday afternoon, causing panic among passengers as the station was evacuated.

Zhu Jiajia, a 26-year-old witness who was in the station at the time, told the Global Times that she saw passengers pushing each other as they scrabbled to flee the station.

"I thought the metro was the safest form of transportation, but after the accident I have changed my mind," said Zhu. "I thought there had been an explosion or something. My two friends who were also there feel the same after seeing Sunday's chaos, and will think twice before taking the metro again."

Zhu added that somebody was screaming, which frightened a lot of people. "Everybody began to run for their life," she said.

The station was evacuated within five minutes of the smoke being noticed, and firefighters arrived at the scene within 10 minutes.

Later that evening, the metro authorities said that the smoke had been caused by "a small mechanical problem in the brake system, which happens occasionally."