SINGAPORE - Commuters on the Circle Line during Monday morning's rush hour were inconvenienced after a train before Tai Seng station (towards Dhoby Ghaut station) suffered a nine-minute delay at around 7.47am.

Responding to queries from The Straits Times, SMRT's Vice-President for Corporate Information and Communications, Patrick Nathan, said: "Due to a signalling fault, the train had applied its emergency brakes as part of its safety mechanism."

Mr Nathan said station staff were immediately deployed to the affected train and manually operated it towards Paya Lebar station, where passengers alighted to continue their journey.

The train was withdrawn to the depot for checks and two additional trains inserted into both bounds of the Circle Line to cope with the peak hour crowd. He added that follow-on trains were affected by the delay.

Commuters took to social media to complain about the situation, with Twitter user Jeremy (@Hungry_JemOw) first tweeting at 7.57am: "Stuck at Bishan Circle Line."

It was followed by other tweets from users complaining about the huge crowds at Bishan MRT station.