PARTI Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) urged the Government to investigate whether the Light Rail Transit (LRT) crash could have occurred due to human error, triggered by overworked personnel.
“The element of human error due overworked personnel must be probed. Malaysia is one of the most overworked country. This includes workers in Government-linked agencies such as RapidKL.
“The manually driven LRT had been mistakenly inserted into the wrong trackway by the central control centre. Overworked personnel are prone to make such errors and mistakes,” said its central committee member Sharan Raj, in a statement.
Yesterday, a manually driven LRT train collided with an automated one in a tunnel near KLCC, leaving 47 seriously hurt and another 166 with light injuries.
Prasarana Malaysia Bhd (Prasarana) announced a RM1,000 compensation for affected parties but the public criticised the company for the paltry sum, calling for it be hauled up in court.
Earlier just now, Transport Minister Datuk Seri Wee Ka Siong said that preliminary findings revealed element of “negligence” by the driver in manually controlling one of the trains.
Public transport underfunded, affecting qualit
“TR240 was supposed to move in a south-bound direction towards Dang Wangi but had instead moved north-bound, a different orientation that led to the collision with TR181,” Malaysiakini reported him as saying.
Sharan said that Malaysia’s public transport infrastructure was underfunded in terms of operational cost, leading to poor working conditions and leaving assets’ reliability compromised.
“Over the past decades, several austerity measures had been imposed by the Federal Government onto RapidKL, leading to these issues mentioned.
“The impact of these measures is visible from the broken escalators, elevators, toilet flushes and roofs throughout the public transport system,” he stated.
The PSM leader urged the Transport Ministry (MOT) to investigate the matter thoroughly and understand the conditions leading to equipment and human errors.
“It’s crucial to prevent disastrous accidents like this in the future. Our deepest appreciation to the emergency rescue workers for their swift rescue efforts as well,” Sharan remarked. – May 25, 2021.
Photo credit: MalaysiaNow
