Anna Salai caves in, MTC bus, car plunge into crater
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Chennai:
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
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An MTC bus and a car plunged
into a large crater that a dramatic road collapse on Anna Salai left
near Gemini Flyover on Sunday afternoon.
Passersby and motorists
stopped and stared in disbelief as the cave-in took place in slow
motion, with a full 15 minutes passing between the time it first started
to sink at 2.03pm, under the weight of an MTC bus at the Thousand
Lights bus stop, and fell in great heaves, to a depth of 15 feet.
By this time, not only had the MTC bus (route 25G, between Anna Square
and Vadapalani) been trapped in the 10ft-wide crater after it halted at
the bus stop; a sedan, with a Mogappair West resident, R Pradeep, at the
wheel, also plunged into the pit as he attempted to drive past the
stricken bus.
No one was injured, police said. The quick-thinking bus driver, B Gunaseelan, evacua ted 35 passengers from the vehicle after he felt the front tyre sink and peeked out of his window expecting to see a puncture but found the road caving in instead.
After the passengers hurried to safety from the bus, the vehicle started to sink further. Onlookers jumped into the pit and pulled Pradeep to safety after it became apparent that he was stuck inside the car. The collapse took place due to tunnelling for metro rail on the stretch, Chennai Metro Rail Ltd (CMRL) sources admitted, at a spot at one end of the underground line where the company building the transit system proposed to take a detour to prevent destabilising the Gemini flyover.
The collapse was the latest in a string of road cave-ins over re cent months (the road crumbled around 50ft from where another bled around 50ft from where another sinkhole, also due to metro tunnelling work, opened up on March 30).
Investigators have variously attributed the cave-ins to loose soil and metro rail tunnelling -or both -but neither of two earlier accidents of the kind, both trapping a vehicle each on Poonamallee High Road, in February 2013 and June 2015, were as large or potentially dangerous as Sunday's cave-in.
After the cave-in, police cordoned off the area and diverted vehicles.There was a traffic jam on Kamarajar Salai as policemen diverted vehicles from Anna Salai to the seafront road.
ACMRL statement said: “The basic cause of today's incident is an ex isting loose soil pocket along the tunnelling alignment where a tunnel boring machine [is operating].CMRL has strict... monitoring of tunnelling work.“ The firm said it installed monitoring points throughout the tunnel alignment at intervals of 10m and took continuous readings every 6hrs.
Finance minister D Jayakumar visited the spot. He said the cave-in could have been due to loose soil.Work is underway to restore traffic to normal by Monday .
No one was injured, police said. The quick-thinking bus driver, B Gunaseelan, evacua ted 35 passengers from the vehicle after he felt the front tyre sink and peeked out of his window expecting to see a puncture but found the road caving in instead.
After the passengers hurried to safety from the bus, the vehicle started to sink further. Onlookers jumped into the pit and pulled Pradeep to safety after it became apparent that he was stuck inside the car. The collapse took place due to tunnelling for metro rail on the stretch, Chennai Metro Rail Ltd (CMRL) sources admitted, at a spot at one end of the underground line where the company building the transit system proposed to take a detour to prevent destabilising the Gemini flyover.
The collapse was the latest in a string of road cave-ins over re cent months (the road crumbled around 50ft from where another bled around 50ft from where another sinkhole, also due to metro tunnelling work, opened up on March 30).
Investigators have variously attributed the cave-ins to loose soil and metro rail tunnelling -or both -but neither of two earlier accidents of the kind, both trapping a vehicle each on Poonamallee High Road, in February 2013 and June 2015, were as large or potentially dangerous as Sunday's cave-in.
After the cave-in, police cordoned off the area and diverted vehicles.There was a traffic jam on Kamarajar Salai as policemen diverted vehicles from Anna Salai to the seafront road.
ACMRL statement said: “The basic cause of today's incident is an ex isting loose soil pocket along the tunnelling alignment where a tunnel boring machine [is operating].CMRL has strict... monitoring of tunnelling work.“ The firm said it installed monitoring points throughout the tunnel alignment at intervals of 10m and took continuous readings every 6hrs.
Finance minister D Jayakumar visited the spot. He said the cave-in could have been due to loose soil.Work is underway to restore traffic to normal by Monday .
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