Landslide near Dudhsagar station halts Goa Express

PONDA: With a major landslide on the South Western Railways (SWR) line near the Dudhsagar waterfalls, the Hazrat Nizamuddin-bound Goa Express had to make an emergency halt at Colem on Saturday.
As the landslide occured on Saturday evening, the process of clearing the debris from the tracks begun late in the evening, and the track would only be opened by Sunday, SWR sources said.
A railway official told TOI that the mudslide occurred due to heavy rainfall in the area over the past week. The soil that had been saturated with rainwater, could have loosened and triggered the landslide, he said.
Being a forest area in the Western Ghats, Colem receives around 150 inches of rain each year.
“A 10 metre-wide stretch adjacent to tunnel number 11 between the Dudhsagar and Sonaulim service stations has collapsed on the track. The earth has covered the track at the mouth of the tunnel and the train (Goa Express) had to be halted at Colem”, the railway official said. “We have machinery already stationed at the Dudhsagar railway station for lengthening of the platforms. It is being used to clear the landslide and the tracks are likely to reopen on Sunday,” he added.
Confirming that nobody was injured, sources in the SWR said that the landslide occurred at around 5pm when there were no people on the track.
On Wednesday, the SWR had thrown open the Dudhsagar station to members of the general public for a limited test period, and only on Fridays and Saturdays. The move was aimed at benefiting passengers of the newly-commissioned Vasco-Belagavi train.