Girder of an underconstruction flyover falls, traffic disturbed for 12 hrs

Mumbai: A girder of an under - construction flyover fell along with the crane on Swami Vivekananda Road in Goregaon (west) on Sunday morning, disrupting the traffic movement for over 12 hours, though there was no casualty. The incident happened near the MTNL bridge, from where the construction of flyover starts. According to civic officials, the crane toppled while lifting the girder.

Due to the disruption, no vehicles could ply on the route and traffic had to be diverted.  Normal traffic resumed at around 3 pm  on Sunday. Heavy traffic was witnessed in the alternate routes, since many commute through the MTNL junction on a daily basis. The roads were jammed till afternoon,” said Kamaldeep Sran, a Malad resident.

The flyover is the project of BMC to connect the link road in west to Goregaon east. It is being built on the SV Road at MTNL junction. The junction is a bottle neck in western suburbs.  “The incident happened during the girder launch for the flyover, the crane was the lifting the girder but it lost control and toppled. We launch girders when there is no traffic movement and thus no one sustained injuries,” said a civic official from the bridges department. He further added, “Four girders are planned to launch, of which two were getting launched on Sunday when the incident happened. The remaining two will be launched the next day,” added the official.

A girder is a large iron or steel beam that is used for constructing bridges to act as a support and make it stronger.    On Sunday morning, the Twitter handle of Mumbai police announced that the traffic movement will be stopped on SV Road. “A girder along with a crane collapsed on SV Road at MTNL bridge during construction work,” tweeted the police.

The commuters were further directed to use Sainath Subway/ Mrinal Tai Gore bridge for commuting on East/West direction or Vasari hill, Chincholi bunder or Prem Nagar road for travelling from/to Malad– Goregaon.