E-Paper
Ludhiana: 4-km long jam chokes NH after container truck overturns
Hundreds of vehicles were stuck in the jam for hours on both ends of the stretch and traffic in half of the city was paralysed; commuters who were travelling in the buses alighted and walked towards the other end of the road to find a vehicle for transport
A massive traffic jam of at least 4 km choked the national highway from Jalandhar Bypass Chowk to Ladhowal Chowk after a container truck overturned in the middle of the road on Tuesday.
It took at least six hours for police to remove the container from the road and restore flow of traffic.
Hundreds of vehicles were stuck in the jam for hours on both ends of the stretch and traffic in half of the city was paralysed. Commuters who were travelling in the buses alighted and walked towards the other end of the road to find a vehicle for transport.
According to the police, a truck was coming from the Hambran side. The driver took a long cut to reach the national highway. Meanwhile, a container truck coming from Jalandhar Bypass Chowk came very close to it. The driver took a sharp turn to avoid a collision and lost control of it. The truck overturned in the middle of the road near Ladhowal Police station at around 6.45am.
Due to the mishap, the stretch was blocked. The police reached the spot and initiated efforts to remove the vehicle from the road.
Inspector Lovedeep Singh, SHO at Ladhowal police station, stated that after struggling for at least one hour, the police dragged the container a bit to make some space for the vehicles to pass.
“The container was so heavy that two cranes were required to move it. By 1 pm, they dragged the container from the road and placed it on the road divider to restore the flow of traffic. We will remove the container completely from the road later,” the SHO said.
The traffic remained affected on the stretch till evening.
Manoj Arora, a Jalandhar resident, said that he was returning home after meeting one of his relatives in Ludhiana. He got stuck in the jam and it took at least one hour for him to cross a distance of one kilometre.
Gurwinder Singh, a Ludhiana resident, stated that the authorities should be ready to deal with any situation as the stretch witnesses a heavy flow of traffic all the time. He added that one of the costliest toll barriers is on the stretch, but they have no facility to deal with such situations.
Additional deputy commissioner of police (ADCP, traffic) Gurpreet Kaur Purewal said that a team of traffic police personnel was deputed to manage the flow of traffic on the stretch. The police have diverted the traffic to some other routes also.
