Staroměstská, Old Town’s metro station, to be shut for one month after young men cause fire
Staroměstská, the central metro station on the A line for Prague’s Old Town, will be shut for one month, to repair the damage from a fire started by a group of young men on Saturday, July 5th.
Named after the Old Town district that it serves, Staroměstská is among the oldest and most frequented stations of the Prague Metro network. Now, during the city’s busy summer season, the station has to close for a whole month.
This follows from an incident last Saturday night, when members of a group of six young men threw a lit object into the machinery of one of the station’s escalators as they travelled up. The burning object caused damage to the escalator and quickly generated much smoke, which filled the upper hall of the station. Footage of the event from security cameras, widely circulated online, shows other travellers running down the upward-moving escalator, to get away from the fire.
Firefighters arrived at the station about an hour before midnight on Saturday. They put out the escalator fire using portable fire extinguishers, and dozens of people had to be evacuated. Since the escalators are the primary way to access the platforms, Staroměstská has been out of service since then, with trains only passing through the station.
On Sunday, the Czech police published images and released the footage from the security cameras, appealing for information about the group of men. The following day, the police posted an update on the X network, stating:
“We thank the public and the media for their assistance in the search. Detectives now know the identities of all the men who were captured on camera footage in the metro. They are citizens of our country aged 20-23.”
Unfortunately for metro users, the damage has been done, although its extent is not yet known. On Monday afternoon, the Prague Public Transit Company’s (DPP) head of communications, Daniel Šabík, announced the temporary closure of Staroměstská, estimated to last at least one month:
“For the escalators, we need to carry out a complete cleaning after the fire, replace the damaged cable distribution, and verify the extent of the damage to the mechanism.”
Spokesman Šabík added that a more precise date of reopening will be given after the cleaning and assessment of individual parts of the escalators. According to the police, the damage is estimated to cost around one million crowns. The closure is expected to lengthen travellers’ journeys and to put pressure on the nearest alternative stations, such as Můstek and Malostranská.
