The Ordered Evacuation of a Paris Metro Train
A photo essay about abandoning a carriage suspended underground and making it to safety
I never thought I’d get to explore the railway tunnels of the Paris metro.
But then Saturday happened.
Whilst I was travelling down line 13 from Place de Clichy to Liège, my metro train suddenly came to a halt. The lights went out and everything went dark. A few seconds later, the metro train heading in the opposite direction on the parallel track also stopped, but the lights inside its carriages remained on, providing a source of illumination amidst the darkness.
For a brief moment, it seemed like any ordinary pause. But then a few minutes later, the driver made an announcement over the intercom: the power had been cut, because someone was on the tracks at another station on the line.
It wasn’t clear what this meant specifically, but such wording was usually a euphemism for something disquieting — the death of a passenger, usually, resulting, often, from a jump made of their own volition.
Though the RATP, the authority in charge of Paris’ public transport network, was unlikely to give any details over the intercom, if you read between the lines, it was almost certain that a tragedy had transpired.
The city had been jittery all week in the lead-up to the Olympics opening ceremony that had taken place the day before. Following the news about railways being sabotaged, it wasn’t totally unreasonable to fear that some other act of malfeasance had been planned below Paris — bombs, chemical weapons etc.
Having to abandon a train was much less troubling.
Whilst we were held in abeyance, awaiting further news, the carriage became increasingly muggy, the collective breath and body heat from every passenger turning the metro into a steam train. Had this incident happened two years ago, anxiety about virus transmission would have been through the roof. It’s funny to think now about how fast those fears had faded.
But once the driver suggested opening the windows to let in a bit of fresh air — if indeed it can be labelled as such — the carriage instantly began to feel cooler.
I’m a little ashamed to admit it, given the seriousness of the likely tragedy that had occurred, but at this moment I began to grow bored. There’s only so much mental stimulation you can find in the confines of a dark cabin, and whilst my phone kept me tethered to the world, it was only a small window into it. Apps lose their appeal when you just want to get to your destination.
My ennui didn’t last long, however, as after what must have been close to half an hour, the driver made another announcement: an evacuation had been ordered.
A few minutes later, we found ourselves queuing up to exit the carriage.
The driver turned the lights of the carriage back on.
Since my carriage was near the front of the train, we were among the first to be let out. The idea, I suppose, was that as we were heading back to the previous stop, they wanted to let the ones farthest from it get to safety first — not that it felt in any way unsafe.
While our carriage took turns disembarking, I saw people on the train to our right watching on with curious eyes. Being in the middle of the tunnel, they were probably going to be the last ones to exit the train, their sole consolation being the light above their heads.
The driver had set up a mini ladder and was helping people down it. When my turn arrived, I placed my left hand against the tunnel wall to support my balance while I made my way down. It would only be later on that I realised my hand would be covered in soot — the byproduct of decades of trains hurtling along those dusty tubes.
At this point, I was keen to capture the moment on camera, so I pulled out my phone and opened the Halide app and started shooting.
Given the low level of light, the camera app automatically selected slow shutter speeds to allow for it. That entailed, however, a certain degree of motion blur.
As I started walking through that dark train tunnel, what immediately struck me was just how tall the carriages were. I had never really considered their height, given the fact that I had always viewed from the vantage point of the platform, but my head was completely dwarfed by them. I tend to make some arbitrary distinction between metro trains and ‘normal’ trains, but from down there, they looked identical. The platform itself must have been much more elevated than I had realised — because the track was way lower than it looks.
As we walked through the darkness, I looked up and saw other passengers sitting patiently in the carriages above. It felt almost unfair that my group had been let out first, but I guess their turn wouldn’t be far away.
Though I didn’t enjoy great visibility, I could make out graffiti along the walls. Others, it seemed, had made their way through the tunnels, albeit probably not during evacuations. There were also a fair few patches of white paint along the walls — presumably to efface some of that graffiti, but who knows for sure.
The air smelt of exhaust pipes, but it was nowhere near as thick as I had imagined. Still, though, I guess it wouldn’t be the healthiest idea to linger in the tunnels for long, lest my impressions be proven faulty.
At this moment, I couldn’t help but feel as if we were in some kind of horror or post-apocalyptic movie, albeit without the accompanying soundtrack.
It reminded me of a school camp I went on in New Zealand. When I was 12, my class was taken to a dark cave and, with the aid of a caving instructor, made to get through it without the use of a torch.
After stumbling our way through that darkness for what must have been somewhere between half an hour to an hour, when we finally emerged at the exit, the light was unbearably bright. Though the actual time spent in darkness probably wasn’t anywhere as long as I had imagined, that impression of all-consuming darkness never really leaves you.
After what must have been about 200 metres, I saw a white light ahead. It was the torch of a metro worker. She was talking to a colleague, a man, about “l’évac”, which I guess is the abbreviated form of l’évacuation. I wondered how many drills they had done for the staff to have created their own emergency lingo, but I suppose it was inevitable.
As the people in front of me went through an archway, I could hear a voice ahead. “Keep to the left,” it said.
As we rounded the corner, there was suddenly a blindingly white light. It was the Place de Clichy platform. I guess I had grown so accustomed to the darkness that any degree of light suddenly felt overpowering. Never before had I seen such a strong light, but I suppose it was simply the standard level of luminosity.
A staff member on the platform on the other side of the track watched on as we made our way up onto the platform, where a couple of staff members awaited.
“Is everything okay?” they asked, and the people ahead of me replied in the affirmative.
After what had just happened, it was weirdly anticlimactic to then just go back to life as normal. After the delirious giddiness of the tunnel walking, to suddenly be faced with the banal march to another train felt wrong somehow.
After being forced so far outside the norm, I felt like I needed time to come to grips with what had just occurred.
I might have emerged intact from the darkness, but my hand still showed traces of it.
***
P.S. The idea of this photo essay was simply to share my personal experience of the evacuation in the form of words and photos, and, well, to get it off my chest. But given the sensitivity of the tragedy that led to the trains being evacuated, I didn't think it appropriate to profit off it in any way. For that reason, I have not monetised this article. My thoughts and prayers are with the victim and their loved-ones.
