SINGAPORE — A faulty electrical cable is believed to be behind the fire which broke out yesterday in the north-bound train tunnel five metres from Newton station, causing morning rush-hour commute to be disrupted along nine stations for over an hour and throwing many commuters’ travel plans into disarray as they returned to work from a long weekend.

Public transport operator SMRT said an electrical cable short-circuited, setting off “a small fire” which was initially put out by one of its station staff with a fire extinguisher.

The fire re-ignited, however, and Singapore Civil Defence Force firefighters had to be called in to help put it out with fire extinguishers and a small quantity of foam. No injuries were reported.

Commuters and staff at a convenience store in the station said they were not told of what was happening and heard no fire alarm.

SMRT, however, said in its statement that smoke emanating from the tunnel got onto the station platform and commuters were told to evacuate the station.

Yesterday’s incident is the second reported fire at the station. In 2004, padding supporting the base plate at the railway track caught fire and disrupted north-bound evening peak-hour service. Then, SMRT officers put out the flames with an extinguisher.

Yesterday’s fire disrupted north-bound train services between Newton and Toa Payoh stations from 9.05am. SMRT said it halted train services between Marina Bay and Toa Payoh an hour later as a safety precaution, and to allow access to the tracks by firefighters and its technicians.

Normal train service resumed at 11.20am.

“At the time of the incident, safety was topmost on our mind, so we took all the necessary precautions. This included shutting down part of the line even though the fire was localised at only one point. We only proceeded to resume service after we had established that the system was completely safe for operations,” said Mr Khoo Hean Siang, SMRT’s Executive Vice-President for Trains.

SMRT technicians had isolated the faulty cable and would be replacing it after train service ended last night. As an added precaution, Mr Khoo said all underground traction cables will be checked again for their serviceability over “the next few days”.

SMRT said these traction cables are routinely checked for their insulation resistance every six months, and the particular group of cables were last checked on Dec 20 last year and the readings were found to be normal then.

When contacted, the Land Transport Authority said it would be investigating the incident and would include assessing SMRT’s compliance with the Code of Practice on incident management during a disruption.

SMRT apologised for the alarm and inconvenience caused, but did not say how many commuters were affected by yesterday’s disruption.

While commuters should have been informed of the fire, Member of Parliament (MP) Gan Thiam Poh felt SMRT had to also ensure that the information would not cause a stampede and put more lives at risk.

MP Cedric Foo, who chairs the Transport Government Parliamentary Committee, stressed that no effort should be spared, especially on matters concerning commuter safety.

“The priority for both the operator and regulator has to be safety first at all times. Reliability and affordability can come after,” he said. “It looks like we have some way to go, we got off lucky this time as there were no injuries.”