Weather-hit metro delays passengers by 3 hours

New Delhi: Thousands of commuters were left stranded for nearly three hours during peak

evening

hour rush on Friday after a

snag

, caused by the storm that hit Delhi, disrupted services on Delhi Metro’s

Red Line

(Rithala-Dilshad Garden).

A Delhi Metro Rail Corporation spokesperson said that breakdown of electrical overhead equipment (OHE) was noticed at two locations on the Red Line — near Welcome and Dilshad Garden — around 7pm. DMRC said that its maintenance team rushed to the site to restore the

OHE

and the problem was rectified by 9.22pm.

As a result, operations on the corridor were run between Rithala and Shahdara, with services beyond Shahdara only being available after 9.22pm.

Although the snag affected the stretch between Shahdara and Dilshad Garden, services were affected on the entire corridor. “It took me half an hour to reach Tis Hazari from

Kashmere Gate

, a distance which takes five minutes,” said Anupam Verma, a commuter.

“I take the metro every day to reach my home in Rajendra Nagar. When I changed trains at Kashmere Gate and reached the platform of Red Line, it was jam packed. There was no space to even stand at the platform and the train arrived after half an hour,” said Saurabh Sharma, a commuter.

Though DMRC said that the real reason behind the malfunctioning of OHE couldn’t be discovered till late in the evening, the most likely cause was the storm that hit Delhi on Friday evening. It is possible that the OHE on the corridor snapped after some object fell on it, a DMRC official said.