Portion of Dadri-Rewari freight corridor collapses near Sohna

A portion of an under-construction freight rail corridor from Dadri to Rewari collapsed on Monday morning at Atta-Rampur village near Sohna. The impact of the crash

A portion of an under-construction freight rail corridor from Dadri to Rewari collapsed on Monday morning at Atta-Rampur village near Sohna. The impact of the crash was such that the launcher used to install concrete spans between pillars was badly damaged. A driver of a Bolero jeep, who worked at the construction site, had a narrow escape as he managed to jump to the passenger seat as pieces of equipment crashed on his vehicle parked near the spot.

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The incident happened around 11.30am, when the section between piers 60 and 63 of the freight corridor collapsed. Sunil Kumar, the driver, who barely managed to escape, said he was badly shaken even several hours after the collapse. “There were only few workers at the site and the crash happened so suddenly that no one got time to react. I saw the launcher coming down and even started the jeep. However, instead of driving, I was able to jump only to the passenger side on the left and saved myself,” said Kumar, a resident of Faridabad, who suffered minor scratches.

Project officials said that the accident was serious and they would thoroughly probe the incident to prevent a repeat. On August 22 this year, a similar incident took place on Sohna Road when a portion of the concrete span of the Sohna elevated road collapsed near Vipul Greens condominium, following which the NHAI had stopped construction work on the elevated road project.

At Monday’s accident site, the launcher, which is used to install concrete spans between piers, had fallen from a height of around 50 to 60 feet and it affected around 150 metres stretch between the four pillars. Apart from the equipment damage, top portions of the two concrete pillars were also damaged.

The Rewari-Dadri stretch of elevated freight corridor is part of the double line broad gauge freight corridor being developed by Indian Railways, through its subsidiary Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Ltd (DFCCIL). The 1483-km-long corridor starts from Dadri near Uttar Pradesh and concludes at Navi Mumbai in Maharashtra. The 141-km Rewari-Dadri stretch is part of the corridor and is being constructed by a consortium led by infrastructure major Larson & Toubro (L& T).

A team from L&T took stock of the situation and rescue work to remove the damaged equipment from the spot was carried out.

A senior official of L&T said that the incident happened around 11.30 am, but there were not many workers at the crash site. “We have launched spans all along the corridor and near the Atta-Rampur road we took special precaution and work was carried out safely. A committee will be formed to probe the matter. Right now it is not possible to say whether the reason was mechanical fault, a design failure or a human error,” he said on the condition of anonymity.

The workers on the site said that a team from Nuh Police also visited the spot to take stock of the situation.

The DFCCIL, which is developing the freight corridor, said that they will seek a report from contractor in this matter. “The matter will be probed and reasons behind the accident will be investigated,” said Ved Prakash, general manager, safety and operations, DFCCIL.