Serious Involvement of Tehran City Council in Investigating Multiple Incidents in the Metro

While the head of the Tehran City Council reports a "more serious involvement" of the council in investigating "multiple incidents" at the construction sites of the Tehran Metro in recent days, the deputy mayor of Tehran has described the incident at the Kian Shahr metro site as a "very rare" occurrence, stating that some experts have even mentioned the "possibility of sabotage." According to Mehr News Agency, Mehdi Chamran, the head of the Tehran City Council, on Friday, September 9, referred to the occurrence of "multiple incidents" at the construction sites of the Tehran Metro in recent days, adding: "The council will take a more serious approach to these incidents to address public concerns." He emphasized that "the number of incidents has increased" and "given the soil instability, it is expected that officials will make greater efforts to prevent such incidents from occurring." Reports published on Thursday, September 8, indicated that part of the metro wall at the Kouhsar station in Tehran collapsed. Following these reports, the project manager of Line 6 of the Tehran Metro announced on Thursday that there had been no collapse at the Kouhsar metro site and that "only a stone fell on the shoulder of one of the workers, and there was no collapse." ISNA also quoted Gholamhossein Aram, the technical and construction deputy of the Tehran governorate, stating that "there has been no collapse at this station." On Wednesday, September 7, at least four workers lost their lives and six others were injured due to an incident at the Kian Shahr metro station construction site in southeastern Tehran. According to Maziar Hosseini, the deputy for transportation and traffic at the Tehran Municipality, this incident occurred when workers were removing precast concrete pieces from the metro drilling machine, and several pieces fell onto an excavator. Mr. Hosseini also stated in an interview with Mehr News Agency that "all segments of this station collapsed like a domino effect, which is a very rare incident." He added: "Some experts have even predicted that there is a possibility of sabotage, but we have no evidence to support this claim, and we cannot confirm it; we can only say it is extremely rare." The deputy mayor of Tehran emphasized that "the possibility of human error" also exists, but a committee of experts has been formed to investigate all possibilities. Mr. Hosseini stated that the Kian Shahr metro incident was a "worksite accident" and that this incident did not occur due to ground subsidence. The deputy mayor of Tehran also accused some "radical" individuals in political factions of creating a "psychological burden" regarding the metro incidents without providing details. He also rejected the accusation that safety has been overlooked in Tehran Municipality construction projects due to speed. Mr. Hosseini's statements come amid ongoing disputes between reformist and conservative members of the Tehran City Council regarding the transfer of municipal properties in recent weeks. Meanwhile, Ahmad Hakimipour, a reformist member of the Tehran City Council, reacted to the Kian Shahr metro incident on his Instagram page, stating: "Repeated ground subsidence indicates that urban construction operations require more precision in expert work than speed in action." In recent months, construction operations of the Tehran Metro have also caused incidents, including a severe gas pipeline explosion in the Kouhsar area in northern Tehran on the morning of June 18, resulting in "two workers killed" and five injured, with electricity, gas, telephone, mobile phone, and water services in the area disrupted for a period. Ismail Najjar, head of the National Disaster Management Organization, on September 29, referred to the opinions of various agencies, blaming the metro for this incident, stating that "metro excavation caused soil subsidence and pressure on gas pipes, water pipes, and electrical transmission cables, ultimately leading to ruptures in these lines and pipe breaks and fires." In this context, the "bombing rumor" at the metro station in Tehran was denied, and there were "two fatalities" due to a gas pipeline explosion in northwestern Tehran. The Tehran Metro responded to reports of 12 Afghan workers missing in the Shahran incident, and there were conflicting reports regarding the wall collapse incident at the Tehran metro station.