Until August 7, 2004, no cable car in the world had been implemented for urban passenger transportation. until the Metrocable Line K (Santo Domingo) arrived.
This innovative system is the first of the Metro’s six overhead cables and accommodates approximately 200 million trips since its start-up, benefiting the northeast of the city.
“It is the first time in the operational history of our Metro in 29 years that we are dealing with such a regrettable situation with affected passengers. This hurts us a lot and forces us to deploy all the mechanisms to care for people and also to review what happened, which is under investigation,” said Tomás Elejalde, manager of the Metro.
The manager explained that one of the cabins that had to enter the Popular station on line K after getting off from the Santo Domingo station, It hit another gondola that was entering the same station and caused the cabin to detach at the station entrance.
While the emergency was being attended to, more than 250 people remained suspended in the cabins, which were safely evacuated by Dagrd personnel.
Elejalde explained that the system will remain suspended to carry out a detailed review of each and every one of the station’s components.
Medellín metrocable emergency.
Photo:Photo Jaiver Nieto Álvarez. @jaiverpress
“We are talking about a very specific incident, about a booth that was supposed to enter the Popular station and did not do so. ANDThis is what is under investigation, fortunately there is no general failure of the entire system and we are going to verify if the problem was in that particular cabin.“added the Metro manager.
The company recalled that the metrocables system periodically undergoes maintenance work which complies with international standards from Switzerland, France and Germany.
“We carry out maintenance very rigorously, in fact, there are third-party certifications that monitor these tasks (…) We are going to involve third parties in the evaluations of what happened, as we do in these types of serious incidents. As a first measure, we will be going to the academy and most likely international experts to determine what could have happened to that cabin.”Elejalde said.
Precisely, Pilar Calvo, investigator of events related to railway safety, was present at the scene of the accident and referred to what happened.
It seems that the causes point to technical issues, but all the elements that could interfere in this situation will be assessed.
“It is very important not to make hasty hypotheses because this can contaminate the research.”. In this case, Metro de Medellín is following international guidelines and protocols in events of these characteristics. It is a specific event and we will find out why and we trust in the transparency of the information they are providing,” said the expert, who carried out the expert report on a train accident in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, in 2013.
Calvo added that this type of accident is not frequent and stated that in this type of investigation they analyze whether they were technical, human or organizational causes.
“It seems that the causes point to technical issues, but all the elements that could have interfered in this situation will be assessed. There is no established time, time is not the important thing, the vital thing is to get to the true causes so that we can learn from this experience and prevent it from happening again,” added the researcher.
On the other hand, EL TIEMPO consulted an expert who knows the metrocable system and, who, due to the seriousness of the situation, preferred to omit his identity, who stated that a long and exhaustive study must be carried out and, in addition, climatic factors must not be ruled out.
“We cannot forget that this is one of the most used cables in the country and perhaps in the world. And the emergency occurred at a point where there is a somewhat complex maneuver, because it is a continuous cable that moves at a constant speed, so, So that people can get on and off, the cabin enters a mechanism that slows them down and mounts them on rails. These points are sensitive points and, in my opinion, they are the most complex from a mechanical point of view because they have an engaging and disengaging mechanism.“explained the expert.
He also added that from an electrical point of view, an atmospheric discharge encounters in these cables a change of medium that generates wave deflections, so damage by thunder cannot be ruled out.
Likewise, he stated that the strong gusts of wind that the region is experiencing also have an impact on the aerial cable system, even if they are not operating, as usually happens with metrocables when there are adverse atmospheric conditions.
In videos that circulate on social networks it has been evident how strong winds move the cable cars that are suspended in the air, subjecting them to an atypical effort.
In fact, the Aburrá Valley Metropolitan Area (AMVA) issued information on the weather conditions experienced by the city and its neighboring municipalities in the last 14 hours.
“11 stations reached red risk level and 16 reached orange risk. 2 stations of the urban drainage level network reached red risk. In addition, a total of 186 electric shocks were recorded, mainly in Medellín (104). The maximum winds recorded in the meteorological network occurred mainly in Medellín. One of the records of extreme winds reached 61.56 km/h“said the report.
David Alejandro Mercado
Nation Journalist
