Mumbai: As heavy rains lashed Mumbai since Thursday night, a video of a woman falling on a street in Andheri West became viral on social media on Friday.
In the video, the site where the woman fell down accidentally appeared to be a manhole. However, later in the day, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) clarified that it's not a manhole but cable ducts created for metro construction site.
In the video, it could be seen that four pedestrians and one person boarded in a two-wheeler cautiously walking past the cable ducts. During which, one of the pedestrians, a middle-aged woman slipped and accidently fell down beside the duct. The other pedestrians were seen reaching out to her for help and then helped her cross the road. In the video it was seen that both the road and the footpath were entirely submerged under water. A 'Go Slow' barricade was also seen, indicating that there could be an 'Under-Construction' site nearby, adjacent to the road.
Civic officials said, that the woman didn't sustain any major injury.
According to Vishwas Mote, assistant municipal commissioner and in-charge of K West (KW) ward (Andheri West), the incident took place at an under-construction site of the metro 2A line, near DN Nagar metro station, in Andheri-Goregaon Link Road.
"The site falls under Metro 2-A project area and there was no open man-hole at the spot. There was a cable duct made for the metro works and the bamboo-like items seen in the video were the covers of those ducts," Mote told FPJ on Friday.
He said that following the incident, BMC officials of local ward office, visited the spot for investigation and it was found out that the lids of the ducts were removed by anti-social elements.
"Following which, a new lid for the ducts was immediately installed by our ward office," said Mote.
However, local Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) corporator Sudha Singh said that the area doesn't fall under her jurisdiction.
"The area where the incident took place doesn't fall under my jurisdiction. The incident must have happened in any other area of K West, but is being reported that it took place at DN Nagar. Our volunteers have made visit to every nook and corner of our ward and they have clarified that the video is not from our area," Singh told FPJ on Friday.
Meawhile, MMRDA has issued a statement on the issue. MMRDA said that due to heavy rains, water logging was observed at D N Nagar Station and also two manhole covers were dislodged due to pressure from the overflowing drains on the LHS side ( travelling towards the south is LHS). It added that no work of Metro Line 2A is in progress on the LHS footpath.
"These two manholes were properly barricaded promptly and also it has been attended by MCGM later on. No Excavation work is being done in the LHS side of DN Nagar Station for metro works," it added.
MMRDA also said that The link road was handed over to MCGM on 28.01.20 and the onus of maintaining SWD and its covers is on MCGM. They are doing it all along the link road.
