Motorists had a harrowing time in the island city as well as the suburbs in the aftermath of two separate mishaps on Friday.
At 10.20am, a BEST bus (route 19) broke down on the JJ flyover while travelling from Shivaji Nagar to Mantralaya after a freak mishap. It also led to an oil spill as the bus’s fuel tank was pierced by some metallic objects. The police had to shut down the flyover’s south-bound arm for two hours, triggering huge snarls in the area.
Nearly two hours after the JJ mishap, a cement mixer overturned on a flyover on Jogeshwari-Vikhroli Link Road (JVLR), leaving the driver and the cleaner injured. The flyover remained shut for seven hours as cranes struggled to remove the vehicle from the spot. This led to traffic chaos on the arterial JVLR for hours.
BEST public relations officer N A Walawalkar said: “A speeding car coming from the opposite direction hit the flyover’s divider. Some metallic objects (attached to the divider) flew into the air and went under the bus, which was travelling in the south-bound lane of the bridge. The driver applied the brakes, but one of the metallic objects had pierced the fuel tank by then. As a result, some diesel spilled onto the road surface.” A towing van reached the spot in ten minutes and took the bus to the Colaba depot.
Traffic police officials said the spillage could not be contained by pouring sand. “The fire brigade then decided to wash the south-bound arm of the flyover to ensure that other vehicles did not skid on it. We kept the arm shut for two hours. There were traffic snarls on the stretch under the bridge. We provided diversions at Mazgaon,” a traffic official said.
There was a cascading effect on traffic from other flyovers, such as the ones in Byculla andLalbaug. A BEST official said other buses were diverted through Mohammed Ali Road. “The frequency of buses was affected for a while,” he added.
In the second case, a cement mixer overturned on a flyover at the Gandhi Nagar junction on JVLR around 12.15pm. “The truck was heading towards Powai. Its driver tried to avoid a collision with an autorickshaw, but was unable to control the truck as it was loaded and very heavy. The cement mixer then overturned. It was removed only around 7.20pm after four cranes were deployed,” a senior traffic official said. As a result, tonnes of cement got scattered on the road.
As the authorities closed the flyover, the resultant traffic snarls extended up to Kanjurmarg on one side and Powai on the other. A media professional who boarded a bus from IIT said it took him an hour to travel out of Powai. “Traffic was affected from Powai to Vikhroli. We allowed vehicular movement under the bridge and there were diversions at Saki Naka,” an official said. On Wednesday, a tanker had overturned on the Western Express Highway.
(Inputs from V Narayan)- Times of India
