Grand Road bridge develops massive crack, officials say bridge ‘safe’
Grant Road bridge developed cracks sometime yesterday (Picture Courtesy: Atit Randeria)
A day after the partial collapse of Andheri road-over-bridge, authorities on Wednesday shut Grand Road bridge in South Mumbai for traffic after it developed cracks.
The Frere bridge, which runs over the railway tracks, connects Nana Chowk on the western side of the railway tracks to Novelty Cinema on the east. It starts at the southern end of the Grant Road station on Western Railway.
The bridge developed the near 20 feet crack, which runs right down the centre of the bridge, sometime yesterday.
Mumbai Traffic Police shut the bridge earlier today to prevent any untoward incident and diverted the traffic to Nana chowk towards Kennedy bridge.
“The bridge at Grant road station has cracked, hence the traffic has been diverted to Nana chowk towards Kennedy bridge,” Mumbai Police tweeted.
The bridge at Grant road station has cracked, hence the traffic has been diverted to Nana chowk towards Kennedy bridge #TrafficUpdate
— Mumbai Police (@MumbaiPolice) July 4, 2018
A team of engineers from the civic department are currently on the spot trying to ascertain what caused the bridge to crack and if it could pose any immediate threat.
Update:
The bridge was opened for vehicular movement around 4 pm on Wednesday after civic officials inspected it and ascertained that the cracks were only on the surface.
The bridge was reopened on Wednesday evening (Picture Courtesy: Abhay Narang)
Railway authorities also inspected the bridge. “Inspection of the Grant Road ROB was done. It is safe for road traffic over the railway portion,” said Ravinder Bhakar, CPRO, WR.
Grant road bridge is now open for traffic.
— Mumbai Police (@MumbaiPolice) July 4, 2018
The incident comes a day after a portion of the road-over-bridge near Andheri station collapsed following heavy rainfall early morning on Tuesday. The incident affected services on the Western line and left at least six persons injured.
While some lines were restored by evening, the remaining lines between Andheri-Vile Parle were opened for movement late last night.
WR also saw two fire-related incidents yesterday. In the first one, an under construction ticket window at Mira Road railway station caught fire due to a short circuit in the afternoon.
Later in the day, an overhead cable wire caught fire at platform 4 of Virar station. Fortunately, none of the rail mishaps led to any loss of life.
The city’s woes, however, may be far from over as Indian Meteorological Department has forecast heavy to very heavy rainfall between July 4 and July 6 in Mumbai and several areas in Konkan.
