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Gas tanker accident chokes traffic for over 16 hours on Ahmednagar Road
The driver of the tanker was shifted to the private hospital as he suffered vomiting and respiratory difficulties due to inhalation of the toxic gas, said official
After a tanker carrying ethylene oxide overturned on Monday at around 12.45 am, there was reported discharge of highly flammable and hazardous gas. It took almost 16 hours for vehicular traffic to restart on Pune-Ahmednagar Road.
After efforts by fire brigade and traffic police at around 6:15 pm on Monday, traffic movement resumed on the stretch.
According to fire brigade officials, a distress call at around 12:47 am about incident involving the tanker of Balaji Road Services Transport Company.
At around 6am officials from the Reliance Petrochemical Company, who owned the tanker, rushed to the spot and with the help of two cranes and 15 nitrogen cylinders, ethylene oxide gas was refilled into another tanker.
The tanker was headed towards Solapur from Mumbai, said a fire brigade official.
Devendra Potphode, fire chief, said, “It was a challenging task because ethylene oxide gas is highly flammable gas, but all our staffers, officials from Reliance Petrochemicals, police and traffic police made efforts to gain control over the situation on Monday.’’
Acting promptly, a total of 10 fire tenders, 6 officials and 80 firemen were rushed to the spot to gain control over situation.
“For almost 10 hours, we were constantly spraying water on the tanker to avoid any further mishap,” said Nilesh Mahajan, spokesperson fire brigade department.
According to Mahajan, the driver of tanker was shifted to a hospital as he suffered vomiting and respiratory difficulties due to inhalation of the toxic gas. “Now he is under observation at the hospital,” said Mahajan.
Officials said Pune city police deployed heavy police bandobast at Wadgaonsheri Chowk to manage the traffic.
Commuters faced difficulties as there was a heavy rush of vehicles on the road, leading to long queues for several hours.
Aarti Jagtiya, a commuter and resident of Baner, said, “I was commuting to work and got stuck on the Ahmednagar stretch for more than an hour. There was chaos even on the arterial roads.”
Traffic police diverted vehicular movement from Pune-Ahmednagar road to the internal arterial roads, and movement resumed after clearance from the fire brigade department.
The process to register a police case against the driver was underway at Yerawada police station at the time of going to the press.
