An emergency drill was carried out last night at two downtown
metro stations.
The drill, at People's Square and Zhongshan Park stations,
imitated a large inflow of passengers to People's Square station,
with 70 percent of passengers not able to get on to trains.
The station, where Metro lines No. 1 and No. 2 meet, deals with
200,000 passengers on average a day. In yesterday's drill,
authorities imitated a malfunction on Metro Line No. 2, causing a
pretend 15-minute delay to the line's trains.
Authorities ordered the shutdown of an interchange passage
between Line No. 1 and No. 2 at People's Square and another
transfer passage at Zhongshan Park, where Line No. 2 connects with
Line No. 3.
Metro workers taking part in the drill at People's Square
Station told passengers not to come in and handed out refunds for
people who had just bought a ticket.
"The drill was to improve our ability to handle emergencies that
can happen in the expanding metro networks, especially at
interchange stations," said Zhou Huai, general manager of Shanghai
Metro Operation Co.
(Shanghai Daily June 23, 2006)