Mumbai: 50-feet flyover beam crashes as container trailer hits it

MUMBAI: An over 50 feet long metal beam came crashing down on Saturday afternoon at the site where proposed Ghatkopar-Mankhurd flyover work is taking place, near Shivajinagar, after an oversized container trailer vehicle hit it. A motorcycle of a traffic police official was badly damaged, along with a private Ertiga car. Fortunately though, no one was injured.

Talking to media persons, Mumbai fire brigade officer, S S Tavare, said: ``We got a call about the accident at 4.35 pm, and it took a while to reach the site due to congested traffic situation on the Mankhurd-Ghatkopar road. With the help of the onsite workers, we managed to shift the fallen girder to a safe place in order to help the traffic flow move better. It is very lucky that no one was injured in this situation.''




A local Shivajinagar resident who witnessed the accident recalled that the container driver was forced to drive very close to the under-construction bridge since road is already narrow on this stretch. The top edge of the container hit the beam which made it fall down from a height of nearly 5 metres.

``There were hardly any workers at the bridge site when this accident happened, otherwise the situation could have been quite tragic. Just a day earlier, we had requested the flyover contractor to ensure that work is safely carried out here. They were also using road-rollers here at nighttime, which is not permitted. We will now demand the authorities to put proper safety checks on the ongoing work here,'' said a local social worker from an NGO, Salim Siddiqui.

Shivajinagar based traffic police personnel, Satish Gaikwad, informed media: ``The damaged bike of one of our on-duty traffic cops was parked at the proposed flyover site, as he was managing the traffic on the Ghatkopar-Mankhurd link road a few feet away. We will take legal action against the container driver.''

Meanwhile, Govandi police is further inquiring into the matter to know more about the container driver's action and if there was any negligence on part of the contractor developing the flyover which is expected to be completed by next year.

``The container trailer was over 5 metres in height, and since it was going past very close to the flyover site, it hit the beam. Ideally, such heavy vehicles should drive on the left side of the road, which was not the case here,'' said S M Singh, who works for the private contractor building this flyover. The 2.1 km flyover will ease congestion at Shivajinagar, Bainganwadi and Deonar dumping ground junctions and benefit those travelling towards Navi Mumbai.