Power failure inside train raises safety questions as Kolkata Metro stalls in tunnel during peak hours
A routine morning turned into a tense experience for hundreds of Kolkata Metro passengers on Tuesday when a Blue Line train suddenly stopped inside a dark tunnel during peak office hours. The incident happened around 7:30 a.m. on January 13, 2026, between Rabindra Sadan and Netaji Bhawan stations, right when the city was rushing to work. What should have been a smooth ride felt, for many, like being “locked inside a moving box that suddenly lost its breath. Metro trains depend on the third rail, which experienced a power failure, and this led to the train coming to a halt. The power went off, and lights and air-conditioners would switch off immediately. Passengers were standing in darkness, heaps of heat inside the coach, not knowing what had happened. Officials of Metro said later that the fault might have grown inside the rake itself, but added that it would not be evident until the checks of the control rooms.
As the doors of the trains failed to open at once panic spread. Others had attempted the emergency door system which initially was reported not to be operational. Time was slowed down in the tunnel. Such a few minutes seemed to be far more and aggravation became outcries. To commuters, it posed an alarming question, whether in an actual disaster an emergency system happens to fail, what safeguard do passengers actually have? Metro employees, as well as the employees of the Railway Protection Force, and teams of disaster management, finally arrived at the train and started to evacuate it via the tunnel. They were all taken safely to Netaji Bhawan platform and happily no injuries were reported. The rescue which was successful was preceded by moments of anxiety that many passengers claim would have been avoided through improved communication and faster response.
The effect of the incident was felt way outside the tunnel. The Metro services on the middle part of the Blue Line had been put on hold almost an hour and a half long. Only two separate trains operated, between Dakshineswar and Maidan and between Kavi Subhash and Mahanayak Uttamkumar, disastrously severing the stream of traffic, at the busiest hour of the day, in the city. Thousands of commuters had been stranded on platforms and were spilling on the roads in pursuit of buses, taxis and auto-rickshaws. Although the normal services have been restored at approximately 8:46 a.m., the incident has caused serious doubts. How come that one power fault might have put a stop to a train in such a critical area? Why did not the emergency door system react fast? And above all, do regular safety checks and back up mechanisms stand well in the wake of a Metro system which passes on lakhs of people on a daily basis?
There was no loss of life and the incident caused uneasiness. The short blackout in the Metro has revealed how easily the so-called normal travel can turn precarious, and how badly the idea of the security of the public transport should be strengthened.
