An emergency drill was carried out last night at two downtown metro stations.

The drill, at People's Square and Zhongshan Park stations, imitated a large inflow of passengers to People's Square station, with 70 percent of passengers not able to get on to trains.

The station, where Metro lines No. 1 and No. 2 meet, deals with 200,000 passengers on average a day. In yesterday's drill, authorities imitated a malfunction on Metro Line No. 2, causing a pretend 15-minute delay to the line's trains.

Authorities ordered the shutdown of an interchange passage between Line No. 1 and No. 2 at People's Square and another transfer passage at Zhongshan Park, where Line No. 2 connects with Line No. 3.

Metro workers taking part in the drill at People's Square Station told passengers not to come in and handed out refunds for people who had just bought a ticket.

"The drill was to improve our ability to handle emergencies that can happen in the expanding metro networks, especially at interchange stations," said Zhou Huai, general manager of Shanghai Metro Operation Co.

(Shanghai Daily June 23, 2006)