Elphinstone tragedy: Inspection of WR and CR stations to start from today

Mumbai: The inspections of the Western and Central railway stations are to start from Tuesday. For the first time, peak-hour videos of the crowd would be taken at Foot Overbridges (FOB) to gauge what the width and length of FOBs must be vis-a-vis the dimensions of the existing structures, keeping in mind the weight of the commuters. The inspection comes in the wake of the death of 23 persons in a stampede at the Parel-Elphinstone Road FOB on Friday morning.

The stampede was caused at a time when around 8,000 persons were massed on the FOB, when rumours began swirling about the crash of a portion of the FOB and short-circuits.

A team of multi-disciplinary officials from the BMC, city police, the GRP and railways’ operations and engineering department will begin this inspection that will last for a week. A report prepared by these teams will then decide the top 10 critical FOBs, which will need immediate widening. According to railway officials, during peak hours (8 am to 11 am and 4 pm to 8 pm), a FOB may carry more than 9, 000 commuters on it.  

Officials said that since there has been no photographic record of the crowd maintained by the railways, from Tuesday the railways will begin gathering and creating a bank of the rush seen at every station and FOB via videos from here on. Engineers will then draw up plans, an official said. “This will be a very extensive exercise and we have a very small time frame to do this, but the minister is keen to get this done,” he said.