The residents of a building in Shivajinagar were evacuated when slurry entered the ground floor due to metro tunnel boring work on Tuesday evening.
Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd. (BMRCL) managing director Anjum Parwez told The Hindu that the incident occurred while the tunnel boring machine, Urja, was drilling seven and a half metres below the surface level.
“The cutterheads of the TBM drill in high pressure. Because of the loose soil, slurry may have entered the premises. Slurry was seen leaking through a wall located near the bathroom on the ground floor. Prior to that, it started overflowing through a manhole near the residential area,” he said.
As a precautionary measure, all occupants of the ground floor and three storeys of the building were evacuated. “They preferred to stay with their relatives in nearby areas,” said Mr. Parwez, adding that the building would be thoroughly examined.
A metro engineer said the incident happened at around 4.30 p.m. on Tuesday. “As soon as we got to know about the incident, the families were evacuated. There were around 10 occupants in the building, including the family of four on the ground floor. Barring the single building which is quite old, other residential buildings in the area were not affected.”
TBM Urja started drilling from the proposed Cantonment metro station towards Shivajinagar metro station in August 2020.