A fire drill took place on Saturday morning at the Ben Thanh metro station, the central station for Ho Chi Minh City's inaugural metro line project in District 1. The exercise involved the mobilization of nearly 5,000 people and 205 vehicles.

The municipal administration joined forces with the Ministry of Public Security to hold the fire drill.

The hypothetical situation for the drill was that a transformer station at the underground station burst into flames and exploded at 10:00 am.

At the time, thousands of people were shopping and dining at the station.

The T1 metro train’s automatic doors malfunctioned, leaving 300 people trapped with 30 of them passing out. 

The fire spread rapidly and toxic smoke billowed out, causing many people to get into a state of panic and about 50 to be injured in a stampede. 

Some people were also stuck as structures collapsed at the underground station, while 10 others in an elevator faced a lack of oxygen. 

Smoke spread throughout the Ben Thanh Station.

At the same time, a collision between car and a truck carrying medical chemicals happened at the nearby intersection of Tran Hung Dao, Le Loi, Ham Nghi, and Le Lai Streets, trapping four people inside the vehicles. A fuel leak from the truck caused a blaze.

Ho Chi Minh City police officers detached firefighters and rescuers to the scene. The city also received support from firefighting units in neighboring Binh Duong and Dong Nai Provinces.

The fire drill took place safely as planned within two hours.

Lieutenant General Le Hong Nam, director of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Public Security, said the Ben Thanh metro station has a total floor area of some 22,000 square meters.

The station with four stories and six entrances is built underground at a depth of about 32 meters.

The facility is one of three subterranean stations set to serve the Ben Thanh-Suoi Tien metro route, which runs 19.7 kilometers from Ben Thanh Market in District 1 to Suoi Tien Theme Park in Thu Duc City, including 2.6 kilometers of underground railways and 17.1 kilometers of elevated railways.

Carrying an estimated price tag of VND43.7 trillion (US$1.8 billion), the route is now over 96 percent complete and will be put into commercial operation in July 2024, according to the Ho Chi Minh City Management Authority for Urban Railways, the project investor.

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