The subway Line 1 in Bucharest resumed normal traffic on Thursday morning, July 2, after a roughly 28-hour intervention to remove water brought by heavy rainfall in the Victorei Square 2 station. The station, one of the busiest in the city, had been temporarily closed on Wednesday morning due to the water.

Victorei Square 2 subway station was one of the areas hardest hit by the powerful storm that struck Bucharest on the night between Tuesday and Wednesday, June 30 and July 1. Bucharest received more than 92% of its average monthly June rainfall in just 10 hours of the storm.

Due to massive water infiltration, water flooded both the tracks and the platform, and train operations were reorganized to allow emergency work to proceed safely. Emergency crews worked throughout the night using high-capacity pumps to remove the water and restore the infrastructure to normal operating conditions.

During the closure of the station, Metrorex, the company operating the subway system, announced that trains were running between Dristor 2 and Ștefan cel Mare stations, with passengers boarding and disembarking at Ștefan cel Mare station, Platform 2. Service was also operating between Republica and Gara de Nord 1 stations, with passengers boarding and disembarking at Gara de Nord 1 station.

According to the company, the removal of the extremely large volume of water accumulated at Victorei Square 2 station required more than a day of continuous work using its 20 pumps, with assistance from the Bucharest-Ilfov Emergency Situations Inspectorate, Apa Nova, and the Ministry of National Defense. Water removal efforts were also assisted by military personnel from the Joint Logistics Command.

Acting deputy prime minister and minister of defense Radu Miruță told Euronews Romania that the problems were caused by a failure of the sewer system. Water also came through even through the subway station’s ventilation shafts, he said.

"I saw a pipe with a diameter of 300 mm through which water was simply flowing like a river from the sewer system. That is not how a sewer system is supposed to function. When it cannot drain the water, it should not simply dump it unnoticed into one of Metrorex's underground galleries,” he said.

Miruță, who is also acting transport minister, said he will hold discussions with utility company Apa Nova to prevent similar situations in the future.

"What happened two days ago at Victoriei Square was not Metrorex's fault this time, but the result of poor coordination by Apa Nova. The operation to remove the water from Victoriei Square subway station lasted 28 hours. Nearly 10 million liters of water were removed by firefighters from the tunnel and Victoriei 2 subway station,” the official explained.

radu@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Facebook/Ministry of Defense)