Road cave-in death: NHAI team at site, to submit report in 3 days

Ghaziabad: A day after a 22-year-old worker died when a huge mound of mud fell on him while laying Gangajal pipeline on NH-24 in Kavi Nagar area, a team of safety experts of the National Highways Authority of India inspected the accident site. The NHAI team is expected to submit its report in three days.
The work on a 14-km-long Ganga water pipeline from Dasna to Pratap Vihar was going on under the supervision of UP Jal Nigam when the accident took place.
“Prima facie, it seems that a shuttering, which was erected at the site to facilitate the work on the water pipeline, collapsed and three workers who were working at the site got buried in the soil,” said RP Singh, project director, NHAI. “The soil around the area was loose since major excavation work is going on at the construction site and this may have triggered the collapse,” added Singh.
“While two workers escaped one worker — Anshuman Kumar — from Auriya district got trapped and died,” added Singh.
“The safety audit team is expected to submit its report in three days and only after that we will be in a position to ascertain the exact cause of accident,” said Singh.
Two years ago, a 12-year-old boy from Khoda died in a similar accident near an under-construction site. The boy — Ishtakar — was crushed to death when a cement barrier collapsed on him. The NHAI, at that time, had refuted allegations of negligence on their part. Last year in September, a man lost its life and 12 others were injured when the bus they were travelling in met with an accident. It was alleged that driver failed to spot a pothole in a badly dug up area of NH-9.