Gurgaon: Gurgaon: An 80-metre portion of an under-construction elevated road of the Dwarka Expressway collapsed on Sunday morning, injuring three persons who were working on an adjacent pier and came down with the concrete slabs.
The effect of the collapse could have been much deadlier had it not been for Holi. Sources said about 100 workers are present at the site usually, but most had gone home for the festival. It was around 7.40am that the concrete slab came crashing down between pillars 107 and 109 near Daultabad.
The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) said it had suspended two officials — one each of the contractor and the consultant — in connection with the collapse. The accident comes a little more than a month after a girder being lifted with chains came off the hook and crashed on to the ground at another construction site of the same expressway project on Pataudi Road. A video of the February 12 collapse had come to the fore two weeks ago.
On Sunday morning, senior officers of the police, state disaster response force and civil defence teams rushed to the accident site and cordoned off a portion of the area. A team of the National Disaster Response Force also reached the spot and looked for any worker who might have been trapped under the debris. No casualties were reported.
Sources said technical flaws at the site had come to the fore a few days ago. Last week, two girders had been placed between pillars 107 and 109. During examination, officials were learnt to have found a crack on one of the girders. “We decided to change the girder and work had started on it last Thursday. On Saturday night, an engineer found some mechanical issue and ordered the work to be stopped. Work had been suspended in the morning too when the girder collapsed,” a source said.
NHAI said it would constitute a technical committee to ascertain what could have caused the collapse. Preliminary reports, sources said, suggested that pillar number 108 was damaged and could not withstand the weight.
“The cause of the accident would be investigated. Prima facie, it seems to be the result of a technical fault. A technical committee will probe the accident and samples will be sent to the Central Road Research Institute to check the quality of materials being used,” said Nirman Jambulkar, the NHAI project director.
Officials of Larsen & Toubro, which has been handed the project, ruled out any lapses on the company’s part. “Engineers of the company are trying to determine the cause of the collapse. Mechanical issues such as these can occur while carrying out such heavy construction work. That’s why we ensure safety measures are well in place. We’ll submit the details of the accident to NHAI soon,” said an L&T official.
Work on the Dwarka Expressway project has picked up pace over the past few weeks. During a recent inspection, Union road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari had announced that the entire expressway, stuck for long, would be completed by August next year.
Residents of highrises that form the backdrop of the expressway project were jolted out of sleep by the deafening sound of the girder crashing down. Some even mistook it for an earthquake. As people stepped out of their homes, they saw a thick cloud of smoke had engulfed the area. “I, for certain, felt tremors. I rushed out and saw that a portion of the flyover had collapsed,” said Devi Ram, a resident of Rajendra Park.
Rajesh Mandal, who had gone out for his morning walk, said the workers who came down with the girder were not wearing safety cables. “Otherwise, they would be hanging in the air. I found two workers had suffered injuries to their hand, while a third one was nursing a wound in the leg. They were too shocked,” he added.
DCP (west) Deepak Saharan said, “The collapse did not affect traffic as we had cordoned off the area. SDRF and civil defence teams were on the spot,” he added.