TRAINS IN FLAMES: Unpacking Easter Sunday’s train arson in Cape Town By Suné Payne SunePayne
On Sunday 21 April 2019 a fire swept through Platforms 13 and 14 at the Cape Town station and destroyed two much-needed coaches. In the aftermath, political parties and government officials have played the blame game over which “sinister force” was behind the arson. One person has been arrested and is due to appear in court soon.
Prasa confirmed two coaches were destroyed — the damage is estimated to be about R33-million. Alongside the two destroyed coaches, 300m of cable needed for manual train control was damaged. Cape Town train services were halted, but have resumed. There were no reports of injury to staff or commuters.Initial indications point to arson as the cause of the fires,” said Sipho Sithole, Prasa’s group chief strategy officer. “The fires are a clear setback to Metrorail Western Cape.”he smell of charred iron and smoke still filled the station” where commuters were making their way to work.The ANC in the Western Cape described the fire as a crime perpetrated on the people.
Mayor of Cape Town Dan Plato immediately pointed out that the rail network was not the local or provincial government. Plato said that while the city, Prasa and the provincial government had formed the Rail Enforcement Unit, the rail network was primarily the responsibility of the national government.
Despite the unit seeing successes, “clearly Prasa and Metrorail need to invest much more to keep our trains and commuters safe. Not doing so is outright negligence”, said Plato.
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