Travelling on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway on Saturday was a nightmare for Mumbaikars after an oil tanker met with an accident on the Expressway, leading to a 12-hour traffic snarl. The oil tanker, headed to Mumbai for filtering oil, turned turtle around 6.30 am around the Khandala exit and there was a massive oil spill. Immediately, the police was informed. It wasn’t before 6 pm the same day that the situation was brought back to normal.
A police official from Khandala said, “The traffic was restored in the afternoon after putting a layer of loose earth on the affected surface.” Officials said that the oil spill was a threat to safety of passers-by, which is why traffic had to be put on hold. Around 3.30 pm, a separate lane was opened for those travelling toward Lonavala and Pune to clear the jam. The traffic situation at the Expressway was clearly visible on Google Maps as it had turned red.
A traffic officer told this newspaper that the motorists’ queue was nearly 10 to 12 kilometres-long due to the backlog. After the road was opened, everyone was in a hurry to go as soon as possible and heavy vehicles tried to overtake each other, which again created a jam. Also, several vehicles that were on the road since morning had kept their ACs on and by the end of the day ran out of fuel creating further chaos.
The accident comes at a time when already one lane of the Expressway between Amrutanjan Bridge and Khandala Bridge has been shut down by the Maharashtra State Road Corporation (MSRDC) between February 22 and March 11 for carrying out fixing of nets towards the Pune corridor.
The netting work is being carried out in order to have minimum damage during landslides. The traffic towards Pune on the remaining two lanes will continue as usual. Mumbai-Pune Expressway is a six-lane Expressway and is one of the busiest routes in the state.
