In a shocking incident, a state-run bus and a car met with an accident after Chennai’s prominent Anna Salai caved in on Sunday.
Visuals from Anna Salai show a Honda City car and the MTC bus trapped in a huge crater that had suddenly formed on the road near the Church Park school.
According to sources , the bus and a Honda city car were trapped in the crater after the main thoroughfare suddenly collapsed near Church Park street around 1:30 pm. Within moments it fell into a sudden cave in the road and was followed by a car that was trying to overtake the bus. Initial reports suggest that around 35 people were inside the bus, and several sustained minor injuries. The injured were taken to Royapettah Government Hospital for treatment. No casualties were reported.
Tamil Nadu finance minister D Jayakumar, who visited the spot, told reporters that the accident might have happened due to loose soil. He said, “This is the first time such an accident has happened in Chennai though metro rail work has been going on since 2009. We will use this as a learning experience and all precautions will be taken to prevent such incidents.”
Sruthi Ravindran, a PRO at Chennai Metro Rail said, “The cave-in must have taken place owing to the loose soil. Geographically, ours is loose soil. We have tried our level best to tunnel below 20 feet so it doesn’t disturb the upper layer of soil. However, metro pipelines and other road construction work makes the soil loose.”
“These incidents are unfortunate. We have done such tunneling work in Chintadripet and no cave-in has occured. We were tunneling very slowly there”, she said.
She also added that the tunneling work for the Thousand Lights and AG-DMS strech has stopped following the incident. “An inspection is going on. They will survey the area and make a report and then precautionary measures will be taken”.
This is the second such incident on Anna Salai in ten days.
The minister said work was progressing on a war footing to remove the trapped vehicles and repair the road so that traffic could be restored by Monday evening.
According to local media reports, the Metro Rail work in the area has been temporarily suspended. Police officials have cordoned off Anna Salai.
