Mumbai is in a hole lot of trouble

Motorists or pedestrians in Mumbai could suddenly find themselves 10 feet under one of these days, considering the rate at which the roads have been caving in. In the tenth such incident in the city in two years, on Monday, a large portion of the road at Kalachowkie caved in.

As it happened in the wee hours, there were, fortunately, no casualties. At any other time people could have been injured or even died had a bus or cars plunged through the hole in the road.

Till date, roads have caved in four times at Saat Rasta (Jacob Circle), twice at Peddar Road, once at Shivaji Park, once at Girgaum and once at Veer Nariman Road. There have been minor cave-ins across other parts as well.

The reason for the cave-ins, say civic authorities, are the old, eroded and leaky pipelines running under the city’s many roads. As these need to be periodically inspected, the roads are dug, and dug again, completely eroding the earth around these pipes.
South Mumbai is particularly vulnerableas it stands on reclaimed land.

In the wee hours of Monday, milkmen on Shravan Yashvante Chowk at Kalachowkie were stunned when a portion of the road next to the bus stop suddenly disappeared leaving a crater around 10 feet deep.

“As it was early in the morning, traffic was sparse otherwise there would have been a tragedy in the area,” said Dilip Shinde, local corporator.

The BMC and police officials rushed to the spot and cordoned off the area. BEST diverted buses to Barrister Nath Pai Road.

Ashok Shintre, director of BMC’s Project (engineering), said, “There are two underground pipelines, one storm water drain line and sewage line. Water gushing out of a leaky pipeline resulted in soil erosion, which in turn caused a cavity under the ground. This may have caused the sudden cave-in.” He added, “It may take six months to restore the road.”

RA Rajeev, additional municipal commissioner, said, “Though the crater looks dry, there might be some leakages in the underground pipelines. The cavity may have started forming five months earlier and caved in when the slab could not sustain the weight.”