You may have seen reports of this incident in some British media, and here is one
from The LocalPower cut leaves hundreds stranded in sweltering Paris Metro trains
Photo: Nico Pollux/Twitter
@thelocalfrance
1 August 2018 09:06 CEST+02:00
Hundreds of commuters and tourists in Paris were left stuck in sweltering Metro trains in tunnels for up to two hours on Tuesday night before being evacuated.
Hundreds of commuters and holidaymakers were evacuated from one of Paris' busiest metro lines on Tuesday evening after a power failure halted the driverless trains.
The failure happened at around 20:10 (1810 GMT) between two stations on Line 1 in the French capital's upmarket Marais district, a spokesman for the operator RATP said.
Traffic didn't fully resume until 23:30.
Passengers needed to be evacuated from at least eight trains, with many walking to the nearest station in the dark along the tracks. Reports say passengers in the first of the blocked trains forced the doors open themselves and walked along the tracks to the nearest station.
The fire service said five people were treated for heat exhaustion after being stuck underground as France is experiencing a weeks-long heatwave.
Passengers took to Twitter to tell of their chaotic ordeal and to call on Paris transport operator RATP to help. But passengers complained they were left in the dark and had to fend for themselves in sweltering temperatures.
"Parents, with their children in tears forced to leave the Metro along the tracks without any help from RATP. It lasted over one hour and a half and no exaggeration it was 60C in the tunnel," said one passenger.
There were reports of a pregnant woman fainting and video images shown a mother and her one-month old baby being evacuated. Other video images showed passengers drenched in sweat.
As you can see from the picture, this is line has rubber-tyred trains and a 750V
DC▸ third rail supply. It is also automatic, being one of the older lines where this has been introduced. Those both had implications, which come through in
RATP's published account.
The line runs east-west from Gare de Lyon to La Defense, paralleling RER A which is currently shut for track replacement. Thus trains were running flat out on L1, every 90 seconds. When one train failed, those behind were stopped where they were with little room for movement, and twelve were in tunnel. So the procedure mow is for someone to walk to the failed train to try to sort it or move it manually. that means turning off the power there, and of course it adds a delay before whatever would happen with a driver present.
After 30 minutes waiting, people started operating the emergency alarms, which led to the power being turned off so the trains lost full lighting and all ventilation. Presumably anyone forcing doors open would also be sensed and turn off the track power. Phone and help point calls swamped the call centre, unsurprisingly, though RATP claims they kept using twitter and on-board screen and voice information (though don't tell us what was said).
Evacuation is (as with the Underground) from the train's ends via a ladder, though there is just enough space to get out of the sides, less easily. That took until 22:30, 2.5 hours from the incident start. RATP are currently saying they did as well as should be expected for such an "exceptional" incident. No doubt the minister will call for a report, in any case.
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