Road caves in at Mumbai's Andheri East

The cavity opened up around 10 pm on Friday night

On Friday night, the road at P&T colony in Andheri East Sahar road witnessed a massive cave-in. This occurred due to tunnelling work of the Mumbai Metro 7A project. Nine families, who lived in the surrounding area, have been moved to a hotel.

According to the eyewitness, the cavity opened up around 10 pm on Friday. The hole in the road is around 24-feet-deep and is right outside the residential building in Mumbai. Godfrey Pimenta, a local civic activist, demanded a safety audit of the area. "Authorities should take prompt action and ensure the safety of the area. The hole should be filled up with concrete," said Pimenta.

During the tunnelling of Mumbai Metro line 7A at P&T Colony in Sahar, an underground cavity and weak local soil strata were encountered unexpectedly, said an official of the Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority. These conditions were not identified or analysed prior to the tunnelling activities. Upon discovering this issue, tunnelling operations using Tunnel Boring Machines (TBM) were immediately halted, and the subsided soil portion was addressed through grouting and concreting.

As a safety measure, residents of nearby buildings were promptly relocated to hotel rooms in the vicinity of the colony, officials added. Following the completion of the concreting process, tunnelling will resume only after ensuring the stability of the soil and the effectiveness of the cement grouting in the area. It is important to highlight that no individuals or property were harmed during this incident, and every precaution is being taken to prevent any further cave-ins, the official stated further.

Mumbai Metro 7a's Andheri East-CSIA T2 stretch is a 3.17-km-long corridor, of which 2.95 km is underground, and the remaining is elevated. This is an extension of the Metro 7 (Andheri-Dahisar), to connect the airport with the metro line.