 "As Mumbai shudders to a halt due to heavy rains and bridge collapse, city's newspapers slam civic administration")
An overbridge collapsed at a railway station in Mumbai’s suburban Andheri area on Tuesday morning, halting local train services and throwing normal life out of gear. A day later, the city’s newspapers were scathing in their coverage of the incident, with the civic administration and state government coming in for particular criticism. Railway Minister Piyush Goyal, addressing the media later in the day, announced that over the next six months, a joint safety audit would be conducted by the railways, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Mumbai, whereby 445 road overbridges, foot overbridges and bridges over pipelines in the city would be analysed.
But while the government is planning another safety audit, the previous one had given a clean chit to the Andheri bridge. This was reported by The Times of India in a report titled ‘Andheri over-bridge is safe, said audit report of Nov 2017’. The report quoted a former railway board official as saying corrosion in the steel structure in the pedestrian portion may have weakened it, leading to the collapse.
“If there is corrosion of 3 millimetre in steel with a 5 millimetre gauge, the strength is substantially reduced,” the official said. “The BMC is also to be blamed as it is quick to attend potholes on the road portion but neglects any damage to the surface on the pedestrian portion. Even if one tile is missing, water seeps into the bridge structure and corrodes steel.”
“The passing of heavy cables could also have caused tension to this portion of the bridge,” a Western Railway official was quoted as saying in the report, while another official said, “The bridge is designed to carry 1,000 passengers, so it is not possible the portion will give way because of cables.”
Indeed, social media users had also highlighted the poor state of the bridge. Twitter used Vishal Tandel took to Twitter to highlight the cracks on the Andheri ROB as far back as September 2017.
Respected @PiyushGoyal ji @indianrailway__ the ROB beneath is in dilapidated condition at andheri platform no 8, for information n action pl pic.twitter.com/51ZMClwOre
— Vishal Tandel (@VTDaman) September 5, 2017
What’s more, the Western Railways had even noticed this and responded to it by asking the divisional railway manager to respond to Tandel’s tweet. Meanwhile, the publication reported that the BMC pinned the blame for the incident on the railways. In an article titled ‘BMC passes the buck, says rlys to blame’, The Times of India quoted Mumbai mayor Vishwanath Mahadeshwar as saying the civic body was not responsible for the incident, while additional municipal commissioner Vijay Singhal pointing out that repair and construction on railway premises are undertaken by railways. “We only pay the funds for maintenance,” he said. [caption id=“attachment_4663091” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Rescue workers clear the debris of the ROB at Andheri station. PTI[/caption]
He also added that since 2015-16, they had given Central Railway Rs 93 crore and Western Railway Rs 11 crore for reconstruction and maintenance of all road-over bridges.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsMotorman Chandrashekhar Sawant came in for special praise after he applied the emergency brakes on a Churchgate-bound train barely 55 metres away from the spot where the accident occurred. He was paid a Rs 5 lakh compensation for his quick thinking. The Indian Express covered the news in an article titled ‘Union railway minister Piyush Goyal Rs 5 lakh award for motorman’.
“There was a difference of hardly four minutes between the train that had passed before and mine. At 7.30 am, I was driving at a speed of 50 kmph. A part of my train could have been under the debris. By God’s grace, I applied brakes and averted a disaster… As soon as I applied the brakes, I alerted my guard, station master and the control room,” he was quoted as saying.
In all the doom and gloom, however, there was a tiny silver lining. At least for students in city schools and colleges who got the day off. And university students who couldn’t give their exams because they were stranded have been given the option of re-exams, a report on Mumbai Mirror said. “Six theory and three practical exams were scheduled for Tuesday. The University of Mumbai (MU) said the exams continued as per schedule, but for students who were stranded, a new timetable will be announced soon,” it said.
With inputs from PTI
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