Daijiworld Media Network - Puttur (SP)

Puttur, Jan 6: After a truck carrying sand overturned after hitting the railing of a bridge at Ichilampady in the taluk on the night of Monday January 4, traffic between Mangaluru and Bengaluru was paralyzed for nearly ten hours.

The truck was going to Hassan when the driver of the truck swerved the vehicle to the left at around 11.30 pm reportedly because a bus was trying to overtake it in a narrow stretch. The truck hit the bridge and overturned on the spot, but both the driver and conductor escaped unhurt. However, as huge mounds of sand got spread out on the road, traffic was disrupted on national highway 75.

Policemen from Nelyady outpost rushed to the spot thereafter, and with the help of locals and truck drivers, cleared sand by using hoes, axes etc. Vehicles could slowly begin moving one by one after an effort lasting three hours. In the early hours on Tuesday, two cranes and backhoe were summoned from Nelyady, and the work of clearing the sand was undertaken with their help.

It was 9.30 am on Tuesday by the time the operation was completed and traffic resumed in full scale. No one has filed complaint about the incident, policemen of Nelyady station said.

Reacting to such incidents, Dakshina Kannada deputy commissioner, A B Ibrahim, felt that the problem is being caused because of overloading of sand trucks. He said the problem can be regulated only if the departments of mining, revenue, police, forest, gram panchayat etc take stringent steps to stop the menace.