Date:10/09/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/09/10/stories/2007091057640100.htm

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2 killed, many injured as fly-over scaffolding crashes in Hyderabad

City Bureau

— PHOTO : P.V. Sivakumar

BOLT FROM THE BLUE: The heavy scaffolding of the Panjagutta flyover under construction collapsed on Sunday after heavy rain, crushing vehicles.

HYDERABAD: Two persons were killed and scores injured as the scaffolding of a fly-over under construction caved in near Panjagutta cross roads on Sunday evening, even as heavy rain lashed the twin cities disrupting normal life.

Personnel of the CISF and Railways who joined hundreds of rescue workers were still struggling to clear the heavy scaffolding which fell like a pack of cards, as the holiday traffic on one of the busiest thoroughfares was moving at a snail’s pace. Seven cars and two auto-rickshaws could be seen under the collapsed structure.

Authorities said that Sunday’s 6 cm rain soaked the ground so much that the iron railings on which the pre-frabricated cement segments were installed before being glued together gave way.

“It had a cascading effect and the segments fell on the vehicles moving down below,” said NVS Reddy, Additional Commissioner of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC). The segments being put between piers 20 and 21 collapsed.

Digging near the site could also have resulted in the collapse. However, GHMC officials did not want to hazard any guess on the cause, saying that only a technical probe by engineering experts could establish the truth.

Police registered a case of negligence against Gammon India officials. The firm is the contractor for the nearly two km long flyover costing more than Rs. 30 crore.

Rescue operation

Rescue and relief operations were hampered as thousands gathered at the site. By midnight, heavy duty cranes were positioned at the crash site, but the operation to remove the scaffolding had not yet begun. Officials were apprehensive of a further collapse, if any of the huge girders were removed.

Onlookers and police pulled out a dozen people and rushed them to hospital. Their condition is stated to be stable.

The accident site is about 100 yards from the busy Panjagutta junction where Hyderabad Central, a multiplex is situated. Minutes before the scaffolding gave way, traffic moving towards Banjara Hills and Jubilee Hills got the green signal.

With the scaffolding erected to support the construction work, the available carriage way is narrow and barely two cars can squeeze through it.

It was drizzling when some motorists stopped their vehicles underneath the structure. It was not yet known how many are trapped in the mangle of heavy duty yellow iron girders which crashed. “There was a blast-like noise. Something like a plane crashing and the structure came down,” an eye-witness said. He rushed to the site and pulled out some injured persons.