Hong Kong faces commuter chaos after rare train collision

A train collision disrupted services in Hong Kong on Monday, threatening commuter chaos during rush hour in the heart of the Asian financial hub, authorities said.

The rare disruption on a network used by nearly 6 million people every weekday brought services to a halt between the stations of Central and Admiralty, rail operator MTR Corp said.

“The repair will take quite a long time and the service between Central and Admiralty ... will not be available for the whole day,” its operations director, Lau Tin-shing, told a news briefing.

An investigation into the incident has begun, although the trains carried no passengers at the time of the collision during the trial run of a new signal system.

The drivers of both trains were taken to hospital, the network operator added, urging commuters to use other forms of travel or different rail routes.

Shares of MTR fell more than 1 percent in early trade, lagging a gain of 0.3 percent in the benchmark index.

(REUTERS)