Mumbai rly bridge collapses, 5 injured
Last Year’s Safety Audit Failed To Find Defect
ManthanK.Mehta@timesgroup.com
Mumbai: 04.07.2018
Barely nine months after the Elphinstone Road stampede that killed 23 people, a portion of the 40-year-old Gokhale Road over-bridge in Andheri crashed on to railway platforms No. 8 and 9 at 7.30am on Tuesday amid heavy rain across the city. Five persons were injured, three of whom — including a woman — were on the bridge and two on the platform below.
While the woman, Asmita Katkar (35), mother of a sixyear-old, was critical and battling for life at Cooper Hospital in Vile Parle at the time of going to press, a chartered accountant, Manoj Mehta (52) suffered injuries to his spine and had to undergo a surgery at Nanavati Hospital. The other three injured were at Cooper Hospital and were out of danger.
It was sheer luck that prevented loss of life despite Western Railway being a very busy suburban corridor with a lessthan-four-minute train frequency. No train was passing underneath, the crowd on the bridge as well as platform wasn’t too sizeable, and motorman Chandrashekhar Sawant, on spotting the debris, applied emergency brakes and halted a local in time to avert a bigger disaster.
The platforms on which the bridge’s southern arm fell, handle suburban trains originating from and terminating at Andheri, as well as a few long-distance trains.
Calling the incident unfortunate, railway minister Piyush Goyal said, “I saw the design of the bridge and studied the drawings and saw it was a 40-year-old bridge, a cantilever bridge, and because of it being on cantilever it collapsed.”
He has ordered an inquiry by the commissioner of railway safety, who will submit a report in 15 days. A joint safety audit of 445 over-bridges will also be conducted with the help of IIT Mumbai experts. These include foot over-bridges, where only pedestrians are allowed, and road over-bridges like the one affected on Tuesday, where vehicles too are allowed to ply. “If the findings reveal a flaw in design or construction problem, it will be rectified,” he said.
About the Andheri bridge, he said an audit was done in November 2017. But nothing abnormal was found. “Hence we have decided to involve a third party which will identify fault in structure or design,” he said.
After the Elphinstone Road tragedy on September 29 last year, a multi-disciplinary audit team was formed by the railways to study foot over-bridges and identify solutions to issues of congestion at stations.
“Motorman Chandrashekar Sawant acted quickly and halted the train. We have decided to award him ₹5 lakh. The injured will be given ₹1lakh each,” Goyal said, adding that around 500 railway staffers were working on restoring services.
CRUMBLING INFRASTRUCTURE: A major disaster was averted as the driver of a packed train that was to pass the Andheri station applied emergency brakes
Last Year’s Safety Audit Failed To Find Defect
ManthanK.Mehta@timesgroup.com
Mumbai: 04.07.2018
Barely nine months after the Elphinstone Road stampede that killed 23 people, a portion of the 40-year-old Gokhale Road over-bridge in Andheri crashed on to railway platforms No. 8 and 9 at 7.30am on Tuesday amid heavy rain across the city. Five persons were injured, three of whom — including a woman — were on the bridge and two on the platform below.
While the woman, Asmita Katkar (35), mother of a sixyear-old, was critical and battling for life at Cooper Hospital in Vile Parle at the time of going to press, a chartered accountant, Manoj Mehta (52) suffered injuries to his spine and had to undergo a surgery at Nanavati Hospital. The other three injured were at Cooper Hospital and were out of danger.
It was sheer luck that prevented loss of life despite Western Railway being a very busy suburban corridor with a lessthan-four-minute train frequency. No train was passing underneath, the crowd on the bridge as well as platform wasn’t too sizeable, and motorman Chandrashekhar Sawant, on spotting the debris, applied emergency brakes and halted a local in time to avert a bigger disaster.
The platforms on which the bridge’s southern arm fell, handle suburban trains originating from and terminating at Andheri, as well as a few long-distance trains.
Calling the incident unfortunate, railway minister Piyush Goyal said, “I saw the design of the bridge and studied the drawings and saw it was a 40-year-old bridge, a cantilever bridge, and because of it being on cantilever it collapsed.”
He has ordered an inquiry by the commissioner of railway safety, who will submit a report in 15 days. A joint safety audit of 445 over-bridges will also be conducted with the help of IIT Mumbai experts. These include foot over-bridges, where only pedestrians are allowed, and road over-bridges like the one affected on Tuesday, where vehicles too are allowed to ply. “If the findings reveal a flaw in design or construction problem, it will be rectified,” he said.
About the Andheri bridge, he said an audit was done in November 2017. But nothing abnormal was found. “Hence we have decided to involve a third party which will identify fault in structure or design,” he said.
After the Elphinstone Road tragedy on September 29 last year, a multi-disciplinary audit team was formed by the railways to study foot over-bridges and identify solutions to issues of congestion at stations.
“Motorman Chandrashekar Sawant acted quickly and halted the train. We have decided to award him ₹5 lakh. The injured will be given ₹1lakh each,” Goyal said, adding that around 500 railway staffers were working on restoring services.
CRUMBLING INFRASTRUCTURE: A major disaster was averted as the driver of a packed train that was to pass the Andheri station applied emergency brakes
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