Mumbai-Pune highway closed till Sunday afternoon after tanker overturns; residents of area in Talegaon Dabhade shifted.
A major tragedy was averted on the old Pune-Mumbai highway when a tanker carrying 11 tonnes of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) from Mumbai to Pune overturned at Talegaon Dabhade early on Sunday, causing leakage of the LPG.
An area of around 10 square km would have got affected had the LPG caught fire and the tanker exploded, said the fire brigade officials. The disaster was averted as the police and fire brigade personnel promptly closed the highway and imposed curbs on lighting anything or using even mobile phones in the area. The highway remained closed for nearly 10 hours till the LPG in the overturned tanker was transferred to another tanker and taken away.
The mishap took place in front of Bagicha restaurant near the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) regional centre in Talegaon Dabhade at 2 am on Sunday. The Bharat Petroleum Company Limited tanker was carrying the LPG to Solapur from Mumbai when the driver lost control over the vehicle. The tanker overturned after hitting the road divider.
Head constable Hiraman Tamboli from Talegaon Dabhade police station, who was among the first to reach the spot, said, “After the tanker overturned, its valve got damaged and the LPG started leaking. By the time we reached the spot, the LPG had spread in the area. We immediately blocked the traffic on the highway stretch between Somatane Phata and Wadgaon Maval. Vehicles were rerouted to the Mumbai-Pune expressway. We shifted local residents to safer places in view of the possibility of even a small ignition causing a disaster.”
The police summoned fire fighters from Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) and Dehu Road Ordnance Factory to bring the situation under control.
Tamboli said, “A team from Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited was summoned to plug the leakage, but they too could not. Finally, a tanker from Mumbai was called and the LPG from the overturned tanker was transferred to it.”
The work of transferring LPG to the other tanker began at 7 am and went on till 1.15 pm.
The highway was opened to traffic after that.
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