The Mass Transit Railway Corporation has announced this morning that train services will be stopped from 10pm today (except the Airport Express). This appears to be for two reasons: 1) to lessen further vandalism and 2) to allow more time for fixing the damage by vandals.
The MTR also said Yuen Long station will be closed from 2:00 pm today. Protests are expected in the area as it is three months since a band of white-shirted thugs attacked protesters and passers-by at the station.
Earlier Transport Secretary Frank Chan said MTR services will not get back to normal, because of all the repairs to be made, for one or two weeks, provided there is no further damage by protesters.
The MTR gave an accounting of the damage it has suffered: 85 out of 94 MTR stations and 57 of 68 Light Rail stations vandalised; more than 1800 turnstiles, 800 ticketing machines, 900 CCTV cameras, l00 lifts and escalators and 90 sets of shutters also damaged.
Mr Chan said, “There are a lot of maintenance checks and safety monitoring of the equipment and services…. Because of the damage of the past few months, there are a lot of repairs, revamps and testing before the system can be fully recovered. If everything remains normal and if there are no further attacks or damage, I would say one of two weeks will possibly be the target.”
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