Bantwal: Truck stuck in gaping hole on railway overbridge

Report: Mounesh Vishwakarma
Daijiworld Media Network – Bantwal (SP)
Pics: Kishore Peraje

Bantwal, Apr 5: On Thursday April 4, a truck strayed onto the footpath of the railway overbridge at B C Road here and got stranded there, after concrete slabs of the footpath cracked under its weight. As a result, traffic jam was caused on national highway there for some time.

The overbridge is located directly above the railway lines, and the footpath here has been posing considerable risk because of the fact that the slabs placed there have been breaking down often and giving rise to yawning gaps. This is a very old overbridge, and several slabs on the footpath have come off since the last some time, endangering the lives of pedestrians and vehicle drivers particularly at night.

As the department concerned had failed in its duty, the local people used to keep twigs at these yawning gaps, and display warning boards, to forewarn the road users. On Thursday morning, the driver of a truck that was carrying a load of over 40 tonnes, lost control of the vehicle while negotiating the overbridge. The tyres moved on weak concrete slabs on the footpath, as a result of which the slabs fell down.

Luckily, no loss of lives occurred in this incident. The policemen engaged a crane immediately to lift the truck aside. The operation took about an hour, during which period, employees, people bound for various destinations etc got stuck on the overbridge. It is learnt that various organizations here are drawing up a plan to hold protest, if safety measures are not undertaken to reinforce the footpath immediately and make it safe for the road users.