The year 2022 was a challenging year for those who rely on public transportation. We’ve had multiple LRT disruptions that have wasted people’s time money, and energy. These problems have been ongoing for years and Malaysians believe there’s been little to no changes in recent years. Thankfully, these issues are being addressed since Transport Minister Anthony Loke took charge.
It appears there’s one more thing he may have to look into as an issue at an MRT station has raised passengers’ concerns. The handrail on escalators is meant to keep us steady and safe but this one looks like it came straight out of a “Final Destination” movie. Here’s what happened:
Ngeri juga handrail escalator tercabut dekat MRT pic.twitter.com/6ealD4oFxr
— ジュバク (@zulfadhlizahir) January 4, 2023
A netizen who goes by @zulfadhlizahir posted 2 videos and a photo that showed the rubber covering on the right side of the escalator handrail basically coming off as the escalator was in use. As seen in the video, MRT passengers looked confused and worried as to what had happened for the handrail rubber to come off like that. None dared to touch the right side of the escalator as they were going up.
The second video showed the handrail problem from a different angle as the user recorded from another escalator. The Twitter post, posted yesterday (Wednesday, 4th January), has since gone viral with the tweet itself reaching over 92k views. This has led to many netizens tweeting their concerns for passengers’ safety as well as tagging Transport Minister Anthony Loke to look into the situation.
While @zulfadhlizahir did not specify which station the incident occurred at, it appears that it took place at the Muzium Negara MRT station based on the sign in the background. Some netizens even questioned the quality of the escalator’s handrail as shown in the videos.
Both MRT Corporation and RapidKL became aware of the faulty handrail after the tweet went viral. Responding to the tweet, MRT Corp replied with, “We apologize for the inconvenience. We will share this with the operator of the MRT Putrajaya Line/Kajang Line @AskRapidKL”. Thankfully, RapidKL confirmed that the escalator handrail has been fixed later that afternoon and apologised for any inconvenience caused.
Kudos to the operators and management for their immediate action. We hope that a safety issue such as this will not happen again.
