Last night, Malaysians witnessed the worst LRT accident in the service’s history. Prasarana Malaysia Berhad has released a statement saying that services will carry on today using one track and free shuttle bus services.
Dang Wangi OCPD ACP Mohamad Zainal Abdullah confirmed with Bernama about 213 passengers were injured, 47 suffered from severe injuries, 6 of which is reportedly in critical condition.
According to news reports, the Trains 240 and 181 left the KLCC and Kampung Baru stations at 8.30 pm. Both trains were headed in opposite directions with Train 181 carrying 213 passengers while Train 240 was empty except for a driver.
At the time of the accident, Train 240 was driven manually back to Gombak for maintenance as the train was experiencing issues. Mohamad Zainal believes that there was a miscommunication between the train driver and the command centre that caused the head-on mishap.
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Thankfully, the trains were travelling at low speeds when they crashed, Train 181 was reportedly travelling at 40 km/h while Train 240 was driven at 20 km/h.
In Malay Mail’s interview with the victims, it was discovered that Train 181 had been stopped on the track for at least 15 minutes before it started moving again. It wasn’t long after they started moving before the trains collided.
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Free Malaysia Today’s latest reports also revealed that the driver of Train 240 could not ‘detect’ the oncoming train because of the possible miscommunication. Mohamad Zainal added that the 2 trains should not have been on the same track.
Various authorities, including Transport Minister Datuk Dr Wee Ka Siong, has called for an in-depth investigation on the matter. Mohamad Zainal confirmed that a task force will be set up to probe the accident.
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Meanwhile, the Kelana Jaya LRT service will continue operations following the accident. Trains will be running every 10 minutes during peak hours and 30 minutes at other times.
To facilitate passenger movements, Prasarana will also be deploying 5 double-decker shuttle buses (frequency between 15 and 20 minutes) to ferry passengers between Pasar Seni and Ampang Park stations.
Note that the train frequency may change according to the needs.
Thankfully, starting today, trains will be operating at 50% capacity following the changes to the Movement Control Order (MCO) 3.0 standard operating procedures (SOP).
