Monorail train catches fire in Mumbai, services shut
1 min read 09 Nov 2017, 04:35 PM ISTA fire broke out in an empty monorail train on Thursday morning in Mumbai, leading to halting of services, officials said
Premium
Mumbai: A fire broke out in an empty monorail train on Thursday morning in Mumbai, leading to halting of services, but there were no casualties, officials said.
Service will resume after all trains undergo checks and the tracks and other equipment are declared safe, they said. The empty mono was going from Wadala depot to Chembur station before the start of service when it caught fire and two coaches were affected, an official said. It seems the coach caught fire when the motorman applied brakes, said Dilip Kawathkar, joint project director of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), the nodal agency which operates the transport system.
The exact reason behind the fire would be known only after an inquiry, the MMRDA official said. However, a fire brigade official said, “Prima facie, it looks like the blaze was caused by a short circuit." Another official said that monorail services in the metropolis were halted till further orders after the train caught fire at Mysore Colony station in Chembur early Thursday morning.
“We have put the services on hold till the tracks, and other equipment are declared safe. It may take 24 to 36 hours for the services to resume," the official said. All monorail trains will undergo checks, he said. Kawathkar said, “At around 5am, a coach of an empty monorail train caught fire at Mysore Colony station before the start of the services... This train was to start the day’s services from Chembur and prima facie it seems it caught fire when motorman applied brakes."
The exact reason behind the fire would be known only after an inquiry, the MMRDA official said. An independent committee has been set up to ascertain the cause of the fire, he said, adding that since it was early morning, there was no rush at the station when the fire broke out and therefore no commuter was injured.
Disaster management officials at the BMC said three fire brigade vehicles were rushed to the spot and the flames were doused in 40 minutes. Currently, the city has one monorail line which runs along a nine-kilometre route, covering seven stations, from Chembur to Wadala. The trains run from 5am to midnight daily.
