A Metro crane came crashing down, and its arm landed right in front of the car, damaging the bonnet and the glass, sparing the family.
Dr Chandrashekar and his family cannot stop thanking their stars. As the family travelled from Kolar to Bangalore on Sunday, on a trip to visit the ISKCON temple in the city and seek blessings, they had a brush with death. At about noon, as Dr Chandrashekar, an engineer with the Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation Ltd, travelled with his wife, children and grandchildren, an arm of the crane at work on the metro project came crashing down. The incident occurred near the Sharavathi Hospital and the Radhabhai Thimmappa Bhandari Hall at Chord Road, Vijaynagar.
Dr Chandrashekar said, “It was Sunday, and the traffic on the roads was not as chaotic as on any other day. We were driving quite fast. Suddenly, a crane which was lifting a pillar on the metro site toppled, and wires from it and an arm fell just in front of our vehicle, damaging the bonnet and the glass. Luckily, our driver’s reflexes were quick enough, and he managed to halt the vehicle and save our lives.”
The driver of the car, Sudhakar Reddy, said that he could see that construction work was in progress, and had been cautious as he entered that area. He spotted the tilting arm of the crane and applied the brake. The crane lost balance and keeled over, as it was lifting a pillar that was possibly heavier than the crane itself.
However, other people at the spot opined that the roads were slippery; that could have been the cause of the crane’s toppling.
Even on a regular day, traffic on this stretch of the Chord Road is slow-moving. With this accident, there was a huge pile-up of traffic. Passersby informed traffic police, who diverted vehicles to service roads, which were not equipped to deal with the volume of traffic diverted. Although it was a Sunday, there was heavy congestion of traffic in the area.
Dr Chandrashekar said, “I have registered a complaint with the Vijaynagar police station. For more than two hours, none of the officials arrived at the spot. We could not move our vehicle. We want BMRCL to bear the cost of the repairing the damage to the
vehicle.”
Vijaynagar police inspector Jaganath Rai said, “So far, we have not heard from any of the officials or engineers of the BMRCL. We have registered the complaint lodged by Dr Chandrashekar.”
On March 18, four barricades came crashing down near Chandra Layout, very close to the area where the mishap occurred on Sunday. In that incident, three bikers sustained injuries.
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