Amid heavy rainfall forecast for the coastal region of Maharashtra, including the capital city of Mumbai, commuters witnessed a huge traffic jam on the Sion-Panvel highway on Monday. Those heading towards Navi Mumbai and Pune earlier this morning witnessed nearly four-hour-long congestion after two trailers collided on the Vashi flyover.
The Mumbai traffic police deployed officials immediately after the accident and used jumbo cranes to remove the trailers which resulted in nearly a kilometre-long jam. According to reports, one of the drivers was unable to apply brakes and crashed into the other trailer that was moving slowly due to a technical issue.
Several motorists took to social media to share their ordeal.
Vashi traffic in-charge and senior police inspector Satish Kadam said in a report by Hindustan Times that due to the rains on the previous day, the roads had become slippery. He said that the trailer in the front, carrying heavy metal pipes, faced a technical issue with its clutch and had slowed down and another trailer, at the same time, could not apply brakes and ended up colliding with it.
Mumbai and its suburbs received heavy rains in the last 24 hours, resulting in water-logging at various places and affecting vehicular movement on some roads.
The Colaba observatory here, representative of the island city, recorded 86 mm of rainfall in the 24 hours ending at 8.30 am on Sunday while the Santacruz weather station, representative of suburbs, registered 176.1 mm of rainfall in the same period, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.
The IMD has also issued a rain alert for the Konkan region of Maharashtra as well as coastal Karnataka saying it is likely to receive heavy to very heavy rainfall in the next 48 hours.
The synoptic situations such as a low-pressure area formed in the eBay of Bengal, cyclonic circulation over the Kutch region of Gujarat and an active trough spread over Maharashtra to coastal Karnataka would bring heavy to very heavy rainfall in the next 48 hours over Konkan including Mumbai and Madhya Maharashtra, an official said.
