The city’s rail operator, the MTR Corp, was ordered to submit a full account of the reasons behind the hours-long suspension of services on the Tseung Kwan O line on Thursday at the city’s legislature on Monday, according to Hong Kong’s transport chief.

Expressing grave concern over the five-hour service disruption caused by a power supply failure, Secretary for Transport and Logistics Mable Chan asked the operators to conduct a full review of the incident in a social media post late on Thursday.

At around 5:15 pm, thousands of passengers were stranded during the evening rush hour when the service was suspended, and were forced to use other MTR lines or switch to other transport modes. Bus companies subsequently arranged for more vehicles to operate on their routes due to the surge in the number of passengers. Some residents said they had had to make detours and ended up spending an extra hour or so to get home.

While the MTR provided free shuttle buses to service the Tseung Kwan O district, traffic conditions in Tseung Kwan O and on Hong Kong Island were severely impacted. Service on the Tseung Kwan O line was not fully restored until approximately 10:40 pm.

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Chan directed the MTR Corp to submit, as soon as possible, a comprehensive report detailing the overhead cable and signaling system failures, along with a complete review of system resilience, risk assessment protocols, emergency notification mechanisms, and maintenance procedures to prevent any recurrences of such incidents.

She further requested that the MTR Corp give a full account to legislators and the public at next Monday's Legislative Council Subcommittee on Matters Relating to Railways meeting.

The secretary also thanked the bus companies for operating special routes and providing additional services during the disruption, all of which was coordinated through the Transport Department.

She also instructed the Transport Department to maintain close communication with the MTR Corp to ensure services continued to operate as normal on Thursday, after they resumed, and to implement necessary contingency plans and preemptive measures and enhancecommunications with the public.

Legislator Gary Zhang Xinyu, a former MTR engineer, said that power or train failures typically do not result in full-line suspensions, making the Tseung Kwan O line incident particularly unusual.

“The disruption may have involved a cascading failure across multiple systems,” he said.

Zhang expects the hours-long suspension of services will trigger the service operator’s service performance rebate mechanism, with penalties calculated at 1.2 times the standard rate due to the disruption occurring during peak hours.

He further urged the MTR Corp to reassess staffing levels across all lines and enhance frontline training to prevent resource gaps from compromising emergency efficiency.

Zhang said the MTR Corp must balance commercial operations with public responsibility, prioritizing passenger safety and service quality through clear asset renewal timelines.

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The incident follows a troubling pattern of operational failures this year. On Feb 5, an engineering train malfunctioned near Tai Wo Station during morning rush hour, resulting in a seven-hour service disruption and in thousands of passengers being forced to wait for up to 24 minutes at some stations. The disabled engineering vehicle — which protocol requires must be cleared before morning operations —remained stranded until approximately 11 am, with full service only being restored at 1 pm.

Another significant disruption occurred on April 26 when faulty signaling equipment near Tsim Sha Tsui Station forced Tsuen Wan line trains to reduce speed from 6:40 pm, adding 15-20 minutes to journeys between Central and Tsuen Wan. By 7:10 pm, the MTR Corp implemented network-wide service adjustments, stretching train intervals to eight minutes on the Tsuen Wan line, five minutes on the Kwun Tong line, and 4 minutes on the Island line. Services gradually normalized by around 7:45 pm following repairs.

Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB) on Friday criticized the MTR Corp’s systemic shortcomings in emergency response protocols, equipment maintenance, and risk assessment mechanisms following recent service disruptions.

Legislative Council member Stanley Li Sai-wing, who assisted the stranded residents, said over 500,000 residents in the district were affected by the incident, noting that much of the chaos was due to unclear passenger guidance, understaffing, and insufficiently trained personnel.

He urged comprehensive equipment inspections and staff retraining to restore public trust, citing multiple recent failures — including two engineering vehicle incidents on the East Rail Line in February and April this year.

Sai Kung District Councilor Kenny Chong Yuen-tung proposed immediate improvements, including dynamic signage activation during outages, preplanned shuttle bus routes, and enhanced staff preparedness.

He highlighted recurring issues such as untrained staff being unable to direct passengers or suggest alternative forms of transport during the initial chaos.

The DAB has called for the MTR Corp to submit a detailed incident report to the Legislative Council within a week, including CCTV footage for public transparency.

Compensation measures proposed by the DAB include free weekday travel for affected commuters.

Contact the writers at stacyshi@chinadailyhk.com