Day after deluge, portion of Sohna Road caves in; traffic hit even as water recedes
One of the middle lanes of the carriageway next to Tikri Mor on Sohna Road caved in around 9am, traffic police said, adding that the section was cordoned using bricks and traffic cones to avoid any mishap.
A day after 12 hours of heavy but intermittent rain lashed the city, a portion of Sohna Road caved in near Subhash Chowk as Jwala Mill Road and Himgiri Chowk in Sector 10A continued to struggle with vehicular congestion because of water logging on Wednesday morning. Snarls were also witnessed on the Sheetla Mata Road as authorities fixed stormwater drains as the stretch remained inundated for most of Tuesday.
One of the middle lanes of the carriageway next to Tikri Mor on Sohna Road caved in around 9am, traffic police said, adding that the section was cordoned using bricks and traffic cones to avoid any mishap.
“The affected spot on Sohna Road was cordoned off as a precautionary measure. It did not affect the traffic movement. Seeing the weather, traffic police personnel were deployed at all major intersections and traffic was regulated at all waterlogged spots,” Gurugram Police spokesperson Subhash Boken said, adding that the police, via social media, cautioned commuters about the cave-in and informed about the areas that were waterlogged, urging them to take alternative routes to reach their destinations.
Asked about the reason for the cave-in and measures being taken to repair the road, which comes under the ambit of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), project director Ashok Sharma said he was not aware of the situation and that he would “check with officials”.
Police officers on ground attributed the cave-in to the 20mm rain received on the intervening night of Monday and Tuesday, saying the rain “weakened the structural stability of the road”.
“This is not the first time that a road has caved in Gurugram, their structural integrity is there for all to see. There needs to be accountability on part of authorities when something like this happens. A standard needs to be set, both while constructing the road and post-construction. Before more such roads collapse and endanger residents’ lives, a safety audit of all roads needs to carried out across the city,” Sarika Panda Bhatt, programme coordinator of Haryana Vision Zero, a government initiative to achieve zero fatality on roads in Haryana, said.
Meanwhile, parts of city continued to experience jams even as water receded from most roads but left portions of the carriageway non-motorable.
“The water was no longer waist-high, but motorists avoided driving in lanes on extreme ends and certain patches of Jwala Mill Road which remained party waterlogged. As a result, there was only one motorable lane on the four-lane road, which resulted in congestion. However, the situation improved by the evening as water had receded significantly,” Sector 56 resident Shailendra Pandey said.
Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) commissioner Yashpal Yadav said the MCG is fixing drains across the city, including those laid along the Sheetla Mata Road, Jwala Mill Road and Himgiri Chowk.
Allaying fears that Tuesday’s waterlogging was a preview of what was to come in the monsoon, Yadav said, “The MCG has identified points where waterlogging was consistently experienced last monsoon and work in this regard is expected to start from next month. This year, MCG is going to float tenders and contracts early, by February, for linking arterial stormwater drains to master drains, cleaning and laying of new drains. Hence, the city should be better equipped to check waterlogging.”
