LRTA orders probe on train collision

THE Light Rail Transit Authority (LRTA) will form a fact-finding committee to determine why two trains collided at the LRT Line 2 (LRT-2) on May 18. Thirty passengers and four LRT-2 personnel were injured in the collision which took place between the line’s Cubao and Anonas stations.

LRTA administrator Reynaldo Berroya ordered the probe, according to a May 19 statement released to journalists by the Department of Transportation (DOTr). A report on the collision will be issued “as soon as possible,” the statement added.

Quoting the LRTA, the DOTr said an unmanned train parked on the line’s pocket track — sections placed on the side or center of the rail line near or at a station — rolled and entered the LRT-2’s line going to Cubao. The unmanned train, which was in “system off” mode, collided with a train coming from Cubao. The train coming from Cubao was carrying passengers.

Those injured were taken to the World Citi Medical Center and Quirino Memorial Medical Center in Quezon City, DOTr said.

It added DOTr secretary Arthur Tugade, Berroya and DOTr undersecretary for railways Timothy John Batan assured the injured passengers and LRT-2 personnel that all medical bills and resulting loss of income will be “reimbursed by the LRTA and DOTr.”

The DOTr said the LRT-2 resumed partial operations at 10:47 a.m., and full operations at 12:31 p.m. Sunday.

The agencies assured they are “taking this incident very seriously and are exerting all efforts to prevent this kind of incident from happening again.”

“We maintain that the LRT-2 is a safe mode of public transportation, and that [the] collision was an isolated incident,” the DOTr statement read.

The LRT-2 line runs from Santolan in Pasig to Recto Avenue in Manila, and vice versa.