Hundreds of commuters were stuck at the metro station Syntagma in downtown Athens during the rush hour on Thursday morning. Reason for the unprecedented and asphyxiating situation were “technical failures” on two trains of Line 3 that happened at the same time.
Passengers on one train were asked to evacuate, while the second train had reportedly problems with its doors.
The damage caused almost simultaneously to two lines of Metro Line 3 was the cause of causing a large crowd of commuters on the platform of the Syntagma station on Thursday morning.
Due to the breakdown, no trains passed through the platform for about 11 minutes during the morning rush hour, resulting in inhospitable conditions according to passenger complaints.
At the same time, an attempt was made to manage the traffic of the public by the staff of the station, which from the result seems to have failed, athenstransport.com reported.
According to the website, the metro staff at Syntagma closed the descent escalator on the platform in order to limit the overcrowding of passengers. At the same time, however, the entrances to the station were open while it was operating normally for line 2, with the result that overcrowding increased during the 11-15 minutes that the train crossing delay lasted.
In a statement, managing company STASY said that after 8 o’ clock in the morning two consecutive trains from Piraeus to Doukissis Placentias station were damaged. STASY referred to the problems on the two trains, however, without elaborating why the passengers of the first train had to evacuate it.
A conductor reportedly fixed the problem with the doors and the train continued its route.
