5 accidents in 6 hrs at Katraj; 2 dead
PIC: MAHENDRA KOLHE
8 were left injured in the series of separate mishaps near Katraj tunnel on Mumbai-Bengaluru national highway; NHAI, cops probe issue
In a tragic series of five separate road accidents on a stretch of 500 metres on the Mumbai-Bengaluru highway near Katraj, two people died and eight sustained injuries on Monday morning.Police said the steep slope after Katraj tunnel makes controlling of vehicles difficult, which coupled with indisciplined driving caused the accidents.
The mishaps all took place in a span of six hours, from 4.30 am to 10.30 am. Following this, there was a huge traffic jam on thenational highway . Police and officials of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) held a meeting to review the accidents.
driver and helper of the out-of-control truck got trapped inside the driver’s cabin and died. The deceased, Raju Mujalade (32) and Ajay Mujalade (28), were brothers hailing from Madhya Pradesh.
Senior police inspector Devidas Gheware of Sinhagad Road police station said, “It is suspected that the rear truck was at a high speed and the driver could not prevent it from ramming into the other one. Both persons died on the spot.”
While police and highway staff were busy clearing the road, another accident took place, in which a truck carrying liquor bottles rammed into a container carrying three persons, who were injured. Cops rushed them to a nearby hospital.
A while later, on the same downward slope, another truck driver could not control the wheel; this vehicle left the highway and fell down onto a service road from Bhumkar bridge. “The truck driver was at a high speed; his vehicle hit the railing before falling onto the service road. A two-wheeler rider was on the service road and hit by the truck, but miraculously survived. Some material from the truck hit his head, but since he was wearing a helmet, he did not sustain a serious injury,” said Gheware.
In the fourth mishap, a container carrying some spare parts overturned near the same stretch, in which the truck driver sustained some injuries; there were no fatalities.
These road accidents resulted in huge traffic jams. Amid this chaos, several vehicles, including a police van of Pune rural police, were caught insnarls , at which point yet another container lost control and hit a police van, a rickshaw and a two-wheeler. One assistant sub-inspector of Pune rural police sustained injuries, while a woman and her child in the rickshaw escaped with minor injuries.
This part of the route has been deemed a killer stretch before, but the number of accidents in one morning prompted senior officials to carry out a trial run of the slope as well. Deputy commissioner of police (traffic) Rahul Shrirame said, “Some senior officials drove a vehicle from the Katraj tunnel towards Sinhagad Road on neutral and found that even without accelerating, the vehicle touched nearly 90 kilometres per hour — it is too much. On this slope, several drivers switch off the engine to save some fuel, but they then fail to control the vehicle as the brakes do not work.”
Highway officials also promised to carry out some work on the stretch. NHAI project director Suhas Chitnis said, “We have already taken some steps to reduce speed on that stretch. Since it is a national highway, we cannot install speed-breakers. However, we will take some more measures in the coming days to reduce the speed of vehicles further.”
In a tragic series of five separate road accidents on a stretch of 500 metres on the Mumbai-Bengaluru highway near Katraj, two people died and eight sustained injuries on Monday morning.
The mishaps all took place in a span of six hours, from 4.30 am to 10.30 am. Following this, there was a huge traffic jam on the
The first mishap took place early on Monday morning around 4.30 am, when a truck speeding down from Katraj tunnel towards Sinhagad Road rammed into another truck from behind. Both the
Senior police inspector Devidas Gheware of Sinhagad Road police station said, “It is suspected that the rear truck was at a high speed and the driver could not prevent it from ramming into the other one. Both persons died on the spot.”
The 2 deaths took place when the driver and his brother were trapped in the driver’s cabin; another truck fell onto the service road (R, top), while in another mishap, a police car was totalled along the route (R, bottom)
While police and highway staff were busy clearing the road, another accident took place, in which a truck carrying liquor bottles rammed into a container carrying three persons, who were injured. Cops rushed them to a nearby hospital.
A while later, on the same downward slope, another truck driver could not control the wheel; this vehicle left the highway and fell down onto a service road from Bhumkar bridge. “The truck driver was at a high speed; his vehicle hit the railing before falling onto the service road. A two-wheeler rider was on the service road and hit by the truck, but miraculously survived. Some material from the truck hit his head, but since he was wearing a helmet, he did not sustain a serious injury,” said Gheware.
In the fourth mishap, a container carrying some spare parts overturned near the same stretch, in which the truck driver sustained some injuries; there were no fatalities.
These road accidents resulted in huge traffic jams. Amid this chaos, several vehicles, including a police van of Pune rural police, were caught in
This part of the route has been deemed a killer stretch before, but the number of accidents in one morning prompted senior officials to carry out a trial run of the slope as well. Deputy commissioner of police (traffic) Rahul Shrirame said, “Some senior officials drove a vehicle from the Katraj tunnel towards Sinhagad Road on neutral and found that even without accelerating, the vehicle touched nearly 90 kilometres per hour — it is too much. On this slope, several drivers switch off the engine to save some fuel, but they then fail to control the vehicle as the brakes do not work.”
Highway officials also promised to carry out some work on the stretch. NHAI project director Suhas Chitnis said, “We have already taken some steps to reduce speed on that stretch. Since it is a national highway, we cannot install speed-breakers. However, we will take some more measures in the coming days to reduce the speed of vehicles further.”
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