Railway civil engineering department head Satish Kumar Pandey points out to the spot near Parsik Tunnel where the wall collapsed on Tuesday. (Photo: Deepak Kurkunde)
Railway civil engineering department head Satish Kumar Pandey points out to the spot near Parsik Tunnel where the wall collapsed on Tuesday. (Photo: Deepak Kurkunde)
With the first good rainfall in the city severely crippling its suburban railway services, the Railway Board is now monitoring its monsoon preparedness with a keen eye.
In a first, the Union railway ministry sent a team to take stock of the situation, after 300 services of the Central Railway (CR) were cancelled and 400 delayed on Tuesday.
Notwithstanding, the minor system failures in the morning, the services took a serious hit when the Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) asked for a one-hour block to repair the crumbling wall at the Parsik Tunnel site.
Railway Board’s Satish Kumar Pandey, executive director (civil engineering, planning), Brajesh Kumar, executive director (Geo Tech), research, designs & standards organisation (RDSO) and Ajay Goel, chief track engineer, among others, visited the Parsik Tunnel site where the wall of a hutment had been declared precarious by the TMC on Tuesday.
Having inspected the damage, the officials are now expected to brief railway minister Suresh Prabhu, back in Delhi. “Firstly, there was a failure on our part and then, the TMC enforced a block debilitating the services further. The wall that was declared unsafe is one of the many illegal structures that line the incline abutting the tracks in the Diva area. When additional mud is piled on to build these structures, there is every chance it will wear away, triggering mudslides,” said a railway official on condition of anonymity.
CR officials now fear that once the crumbling structures are completely cleared, it will set off further mudslides. “Once the wall is removed, there will be nothing to obstruct the mud that could now slide down the incline freely on to the tracks during a heavy spell. The speed on the fast track has now been restricted to 30 kmph,” said another official. This is the first time in the history of suburban railway that a team from Delhi has been exclusively sent to check on Mumbai’s monsoon preparedness.
