By Michael Behrendt
350 passengers from three trains had to be rescued. The light rail was paralyzed for over an hour.
Suddenly hundreds of people were standing on the tracks! Because an S-Bahn stopped short of Friedrichstrasse station, they simply got out, causing huge chaos on the train on Monday evening.
The S-Bahn had a technical defect and did not continue. That obviously took too long for some, especially in the heat. Suddenly, the first passengers left the car – on the bridge over Luisenstrasse. And that was before the fire department arrived. She then took care of the safe evacuation of all passengers.
The problem: Two other trains were also on the free route because the track was blocked by the defective S-Bahn. In total, the fire brigade had to guide around 350 passengers to Friedrichstrasse station. With suitcases, prams and even bicycles!
Train traffic on the route was completely stopped for over an hour (long-distance traffic and several RE were also affected), and the electricity was switched off. 20 federal police officers and 50 fire brigade officers were on duty.
There were no injuries. Because of the heat, only two people had to be treated as outpatients in ambulances.
Regional trains were able to run again around 7:30 p.m. However, the defective S-Bahn train continued to block a track. For this reason, lines S3, S5 and S7 initially only ran every 20 minutes.