TL:DR – A fatal accident took away two lives this morning (22 March) about 150 metres away from the platform of the Pasir Ris MRT station.
The two men who were killed — Mr Nasrulhudin Najumudin (26) and Mr Muhammad Asyraf Ahmad Buhari (24) — were part of a 15-men team who had been investigating an alarm from the signalling equipment”, according to SMRT. They were hit by an incoming train entering the Pasir Ris station at about 60km per hour. No other member of the team was injured. The accident happened at around 11:10am.
Here’s the clip of the SMRT CEO Desmond Kuek and SMRT managing director Mr Lee Ling Wee speaking to the media this evening.
The pair, both Singaporeans, had just started work with the transport operator in January this year, and were still undergoing on-the-job training. During the time of the accident, they were walking directly behind their supervisor, who was leading the team of 15, in a single file on the walkway beside the train track, towards the location of the signalling equipment.
Lee had said,
“Normally when that happens there’s track access, they request for track authorisation from the Operations Control Centre. When given, they will then proceed to the track. In this instance, that was given. The power was supposed to be switched off when they reached the location but unfortunately the accident happened before they actually reached the site where they were supposed to do the investigation.”
What We Know So Far:
- According to SOP, there are supposed to be two levels of permission that the maintenance team has to seek.
- First is the permission to access the track. Apparently, the team was undergoing ‘supervised activity’ and that they were authorised to access the track when the accident happened.
- Second is the permission to switch off the power, but the accident happened before the second permission could be sought.
- The police and also the Ministry of Manpower are currently carrying out investigations to establish how the accident could have happened.
- The transport operator is reviewing their SOPs.
- You can check out some photos here.
The SMRT have also provided further clarification to the media through these images:
Reactions
(Writer’s note: This is just too shocking. Such young lives and with potentially so much ahead of them… I cannot stop thinking about what it could have been, how it shouldn’t be so, and what their loved ones must be going through now. Let’s hope the authorities find out for sure what happened. If there’re lapses, steps should be taken urgently to ensure that we prevent a repeat of such an accident.)
#KeepSafe #GoHomeSafe