Chaos on the metro to Malaga city centre for Holy Monday processions

Hundreds of passengers were forced to wait for long periods to arrive in Malaga city centre as Monday’s metro services were so crammed with passengers no one could board at some stops on the line.

The chaos happened just before 5.30pm when crowds of people boarded Malaga city bound trains to see the Holy Monday procession of El Cautivo through the centre, which was scheduled to start at 5.20pm. But some travellers were forced to wait for later trains due to the high volume of passengers using the service.

It was an unforeseen peak in passengers before a rush hour that had initially been predicted, technical sources from the metro told SUR.

Starting from 5.30pm every day during Holy Week the frequency of trains is increased to one service every five minutes and fifty seconds in a bid to reduce congestion. On Monday, the frequency was every seven minutes.

The company has its entire fleet of 14 trains in circulation, with four additional trains to come into service in September, but huge numbers are expected to continue to flood onto the metro throughout the week.

Malaga Metro transported 53,445 passengers on Palm Sunday, according to data provided by the Junta de Andalucia. The huge figure was triple that of Palm Sunday in 2022 when 17,022 users packed onto metro trains.