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PM Lee 'very worried' that problem causing train breakdown may recur

By

Joyce Hooijoyceh@sph.com.sg@JoyceHooiBT  

In the wake of what was possibly Singapore's worst train disruption in history, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong noted that the root cause of the power trips leading up to the breakdown had not yet been identified.

PHOTO: SPH

JUL 8, 20156:36 PM

In the wake of what was possibly Singapore's worst train disruption in history, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong noted that the root cause of the power trips leading up to the breakdown had not yet been identified.

"Today fortunately trains ran without a glitch, so far. But because we have not identified the root cause of the power trips, we are still very worried that the problem may recur," the prime minister said in a Facebook post on Wednesday evening.

On Tuesday evening, SMRT's train services across the North-South and East-West Lines were both disrupted after a traction power trip occurred. Both lines were shut for more than two hours, leaving tens of thousands of commuters stranded during the evening peak period.

At a media briefing on Wednesday morning, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) had said that it was difficult to isolate the fault because of the size and complexity of the rail system, and that more time would be needed.

In his Facebook post on Wednesday evening, PM Lee expressed his concern about the major disruption to train services. "I had just recently visited the SMRT Bishan Depot, to see their maintenance operations and teams. So I went to the LTA Ops Centre this afternoon, to be briefed on the situation," he said.

"We are still trying to find out the cause of the problem. LTA and SMRT staff and engineers worked through the night checking trains, tracks and cables."

PM Lee added that he hoped that the faults would be identified and resolved quickly to prevent further inconvenience to commuters.

      

Singapore: China's crash hits local stocks

By

R. Sivanithysivan@sph.com.sg@RSivanithyBT

JUL 8, 20155:29 PM

When China stocks and the Hong Kong market were surging earlier this year, there was no sympathetic movement in local stocks. This caused much frustration among observers here who had grown accustomed to trading here following Hong Kong's lead. Even more frustrating was Wednesday's 55.94 points or 1.7 per cent loss at 3,284.99 that the Straits Times Index suffered which came as a direct consequence of the Hang Seng's almost 6 per cent crash.

The spillover selling here was widespread, leading to an advance-decline score of 73-426 excluding warrants. Volume was the highest in several days at 1.8 billion units worth S$1.6 billion.

Brokers were despairing when asked to describe the day's trading, their responses punctuated by the usual expletives best left unprinted. All pointed to China as the culprit, although many acknowledged that the as-yet unresolved Greek situation also played a part.

The massive selling in China was described as a direct consequence of an unwinding of widespread margin positions taken by millions of retail punters eager to latch on to the rally of earlier months.

Over the weekend China regulators introduced measures to shore up the country's plunging market, measures which observers said may have added to the problem.

Whatever the case, the extreme volatility in China was said to be keeping investors away. However, not all was doom and gloom - among the stocks which held firm in the face of the selling was IHC, which ended unchanged at S$0.30 with 37 million done.

    
 

US: Stocks drop as China equity slump deepens

JUL 8, 20159:58 PM

[NEW YORK] US stocks tumbled in opening trade Wednesday as another big drop in the Chinese equity markets amplified concerns about the world's second-biggest economy.

Five minutes into trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was at 17,655.12, down 121.79 points (0.69 per cent).

The broad-based S&P 500 dropped 13.04 (0.63 per cent) to 2,068.30, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index fell 36.14 (0.72 per cent) to 4,961.32.

The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index closed down 5.90 per cent with a Chinese securities official decrying "panic and irrational" selling. Chinese stocks have dropped more than 30 per cent since mid-June.

"The concern is that the popping of this bubble may seriously crimp the already slowing Chinese economic growth rate," said Briefing.com.

European stocks rallied, but Briefing.com said the rise was based on "questionable assumptions" underlying a hoped-for deal to resolve the Greek debt crisis.

AFP