Mumbai: A road overbridge (ROB) in Mumbai's suburban Andheri area collapsed on Tuesday morning due to heavy rains, bringing to a halt the local train services and affecting some long-distance trains that caused massive inconvenience to the commuters, officials said.
Five people were injured, two of them seriously, in the incident that took place at around 7.30 am IST, the Brihamumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said.
The Gokhale road overbridge, built in 1971, collapsed near the eastern side of the railway station, a BMC disaster management cell official said after the incident for which the government came under attack.
"Incessant rains caused cracks in the ROB, resulting in its collapse. Thankfully, no train was passing on the track under the bridge at that time," said a civic official.
Due to the collapse, local train services of the Western Railway were stopped, causing massive inconvenience to the daily commuters, for whom local train services are the lifeline.
Some long-distance express trains were cancelled and rescheduled because of the ROB collapse.
Railways Minister Piyush Goyal visited the accident site in the afternoon and said that he had ordered an inquiry by the Commissioner of Rail Safety whose report would have to be submitted within 15 days.
Expressing regret over the accident, he said it was "very unfortunate" and "most unexpected".
Meanwhile, an alert motorman is being hailed as a hero after he averted a major tragedy on Tuesday when he applied emergency brakes right in time, stopping his train just a few metres away from the spot where part of a road overbridge had collapsed in suburban Andheri. See P6