By IANS,
New Delhi : In the worst accident in the history of Delhi Metro, five people were killed and 15 injured when an elevated section of the tracks under construction came crashing down Sunday morning. Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) chief E. Sreedharan, though not directly responsible, owned the “moral responsibility” and stepped down.
The concrete slabs that collapsed were part of an elevated section of a new Metro route between the Central Secretariat and Badarpur section. The accident took place around 5 a.m. at the construction site at Zamrudpur near Kailash Colony in south Delhi.
A launching girder along with a portion of the elevated tracks set up on pre-fabricated pillars collapsed with an ear-splitting noise.
Sreedharan said the incident took place between pillars 66 and 67 when the pillar cap was affected. Ten segments were to be erected on the stretch, of which five had been completed. When the sixth segment was being erected, the launching girder – one of the longest – collapsed due to disbalance.
“The 4.23-metre long cantilever (which collapsed) was longest to be used in any of the DMRC project. It was holding two girders – one launching girder and the girder to be erected,” the DMRC managing director told a press conference later in the afternoon.
“Twenty people who were working on it got injured, and out of them, five were killed. The injured were rushed to various hospitals,” he said.
Sreedharan, the 77-year-old technocrat who has earned the sobriquet of India’s “Metro man” and has been honoured with Padma Shri for his exemplary public service, owned “moral responsibility” for the crash and quit.
“I have been in charge of the Metro since the beginning. I take full responsibility for the accident, and having taken the full moral responsibility I resign as the managing director of the Delhi Metro,” he told mediapersons.
“I may not be directly connected with the accident. But I am the head of the organisation and have to take the moral responsibility,” Sreedharan added.
However, Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit said that the decision over his resignation would not be taken in haste.
The DMRC has constituted a four-member high-level technical committee to probe the accident.
This Metro section was slated to open by September 2010, a month before the Commonwealth Games the capital will host.
“Due to this accident, the estimated damage is Rs.6 crore (Rs.60 million) to the whole work. This accident is going to cause a serious delay. We anticipate on this section a delay of at least three months,” said Sreedharan.
He assured that construction would be undertaken on all other Metro Rail corridors only after thorough checking.
The work at this stretch was being undertaken by Gammon India Ltd, a private firm contracted by the DMRC.
Thirty workers were present at the site – most of them from Bihar, Orissa and Uttar Pradesh – at the time of the accident.
Three of the dead have been identified as Anshuman, a site engineer, and construction workers Niranjan and Badan Singh, DMRC spokesman Anuj Dayal said. Two bodies were trapped under the debris which was being removed till late Sunday.
The injured were taken to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Safdarjung and Moolchand hospitals.
Construction workers allege that the pillar on which the girder segment was to be hoisted was faulty. Delhi Police have registered a case of negligence against the company.
Said Joint Commissioner of Police (southern range) Ajay Kashyap: “Our immediate priority is to clear the debris and to carry out rescue operations. We have registered a case of negligence, and technical experts will carry out an inquiry into the matter.”
“The traffic, and power and water supply in the area have been affected following the rescue operation. Debris clearance will take time as the collapsed structure is quite big,” Kashyap said.
Sreedharan said the DMRC was making an effort to remove the debris and open at least one section of the main arterial road that carries traffic to the Nehru Place business district, which was closed to traffic immediately after the pre-dawn accident Sunday.
The Delhi government announced a compensation of Rs.500,000 to the kin of each of the deceased, Rs.200,000 each to those permanently disabled and Rs.50,000 each to those injured. The compensation will be paid by the DMRC.
Delhi’s main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader V.K.Malhotra accused the state government of rushing the Metro project ahead of the Commonwealth Games.
But Dikshit said: “I don’t think it was due to the pressure of the Commonwealth Games that the incident happened. There is no pressure that could lead to the collapse.”
This was the second major accident in the history of Delhi Metro after October 2008, when a launching girder collapsed killing two in Lakshmi Nagar in east Delhi.
Delhi Metro, which began operations in 2002 and has been held up as a model of efficiency, runs 70 trains on various routes and carries over 800,000 people every day.