A pedestrian portion of a Road Over Bridge (ROB) near the Andheri station came crashing down on the Western Railway tracks on Tuesday around 7.30pm, injuring five persons, disrupting train services for most part of the day and in the process preventing lakhs of office-goers from reaching their work stations.
While Mumbaikars thanked their lucky stars for sparing their city of a major disaster, it was an alert suburban train motorman who saved the lives of hundreds of commuters travelling by Borivli-Churchgate local by bringing it to a screeching halt, seconds before the collapse.
Railway Minister Piyush Goyal, who visited the mishap site in the evening, announced a cash reward of Rs 5 lakh to Sawant, in recognition of his effort to save hundreds of lives.
Of those injured, four persons — Dwarka Prasad, Gindhami Singh, Manoj Mehta and Harish Kohate — sustained grievous injuries, while the remaining one, Asmita Katkar, was critical, when he was rushed along with other injured persons to the nearby Cooper Hospital. Kohate is being treated at the ICU of the hospital.
Though the city had remained under intense wet spell since Monday night, everything appeared normal for motorman Chandrashekhar Sawant when the Churchgate-bound train that he was negotiating, approached the Andheri railway station.
“After I left the Andheri station, my train was just 60 to 70 meter away from the ROB, when I saw a portion of bridge crashing down on the tracks. I suddenly applied the emergency breaks and brought the train to a grinding halt. Had I delayed in applying breaks even by a few seconds, compartments of my suburban train would have come under the debris of the collapsed portion of the bridge,” Sawant said. Incidentally, minutes before the crash, another suburban train had sped past from under the ROB.
Immediately after he brought to his train to a halt, Sawant alerted the train’s guard and the railway authorities about the ROB collapse. He also put the red flasher light to signal trains behind to wait. “Everything happened in a fraction of seconds that the commuters did not actually know as to what had happened,” he said.
When mediapersons brought to his attention that he had averted a major disaster, a humble Sawant said: “Driving a train is a matter of responsibility and one has to be always alert... I have done my duty”.
An ex-Armyman and a resident of Mira Road, Sawant has been a motorman with the Western Railway since 1997.
The mishap resulted in the snapping of the Over Head Equipment (OHE) lines. Owing to the presence of debris on the tracks, the suburban services on the main line of the Western Railway between Churchgate and Virar was disrupted. Also affected was the movement of trains between Andheri and Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST).
Following the mishap, the authorities suspended the operation of suburban trains on the affected tracks. Several incoming and outgoing long-distance trains were either cancelled or diverted.
The track restoration work began soon after the mishap, with the personnel from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), Western Railway, Central Railway, National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), Mumbai Fire Brigade, Railway Protection Force (RPF) and Government Reserve Police (GRP) swinging into action.
The CR’s Harbour line was restored post noon, while the full restoration of the Goregaon-Virar section is expected to be completed by Wednesday. “The Harbour line restoration ensured connectivity between Churchgate and Goregaon as well as between CSMT and Goregaon stations. The first train for CSMT left from Andheri at 14.20 hrs,” a Western Railway spokesperson said.
Railway Minister Piyush Goyal, who rushed to Mumbai after the mishap, has ordered a probe into the incident by the Commissioner of Railway Safety “I have called for inquiry report within 15 days.
Goyal said that around 500 railway officers and employees are working to restore Western lines. “Within 6 months 445 bridges across Mumbai above rail tracks will be audited, he said.