At around 6am, two multi-axle vehicles rear ended each other after the driver was unable to apply brakes on time
The traffic department deployed over 30 police personnel along with jumbo cranes to remove the vehicles.
Commuters travelling towards Pune via Sion-Panvel highway on Monday were stuck in traffic for over four hours after two trailers collided at the Vashi Flyover.
The traffic department deployed over 30 police personnel along with jumbo cranes to remove the vehicles and clear the congestion that stretched to over a kilometre.
At around 6am, two multi-axle vehicles rear ended each other after the driver was unable to apply brakes on time.
“Since it was raining yesterday, the road have become slippery and the trailer carrying heavy metal pipes which was in the front developed some technical issues with its clutch and had slowed down. At the same time, another trailer coming from behind couldn’t apply brakes and ended up colliding with the trailer in the front causing major accident and led to the traffic jam,” said the Vashi traffic in-charge and senior police inspector Satish Kadam.
There were no casualties reported.
Officer goers and students expressed their anguish over the traffic delays.
“Due to the traffic congestion, students heading from Chembur to Vashi arrived almost an hour after school time. It was very disturbing for the parents as they were not aware of their kid’s whereabouts till the time the bus hadn’t reached the school,” said a resident of Nerul Dr Nirali Sanghavi.
Another daily commuter from Vashi to Andheri Prasad Gawde usually reaches his destination by 10am but on Monday he reached past noon.
“He boards the 8:55am bus from Vashi daily and usually reaches in an hour, but on Monday even at 12pm, he was midway,” said his wife, Trupti Gawde.
The entire road was blocked, and the traffic department had to undertake a major operation to remove the vehicles from the road.
The department had to hire jumbo cranes to shift the trailers away from the road.
“Since the trailers were heavily loaded, our initial attempt to remove them using a small crane didn’t work. Eventually with jumbo cranes we managed to shift the heavily loaded trailer to the sideways. By 12pm, the congestion was cleared as both the trailers were removed from the road. One lane on the flyover was kept operational and simultaneously vehicles were also diverted and directed to use the old flyover,” said an official from the location.
Traffic congestion towards the Mumbai side of the flyover was attributed to onlookers slowing down to shoot videos.
“There was no issue on the other side but motorists curious to see the accident were slowing down thereby creating traffic congestion on the other side as well,” said Kadam.
