Solan-Shimla national highway stretch caves in, traffic diverted

Ambika Sharma

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Solan, August 11

Exposing shoddy construction, a 50-m stretch of road at Shamlech village on the Solan-Shimla section of national highway caved in this afternoon.

Five occupants of a car below had a miraculous escape as the car was swept away about 100 m deep into a gorge as huge quantities of debris fell on it. A mechanic, who was repairing another car, and its owner also had a close shave as they were swept into the gorge along with the debris.

Road shut for 25 days

The base of the caved-in stretch has sunk owing to loose strata and the road has been closed for 25 days. Engineering strategies will be put in place to restore the road after proper investigations. —Balwinder Singh, Project Manager, GR Infraprojects

With the approach to a flyover having been cut-off from the Solan side, traffic was made one-sided. Traffic was diverted through Barog for vehicles coming from Chandigarh while those coming from Shimla were diverted through the highway below the flyover.

The spot had started sinking a few days ago following which the flyover was closed to traffic on Sunday but was restored on Monday after repair.

Balwinder Singh, Project Manager, GR Infraprojects, which was executing the four-laning work on this highway, said, “The base of the caved-in stretch has sunk owing to loose strata and the road has been closed for 25 days. Engineering strategies will be put in place to restore the road after proper investigations.”

The incident has put a question mark on the quality of work being executed as the four-laning work was completed in June last year. The manner in which tonnes of loose strata had given way proved that the stretch lacked concrete base.

Whether the appropriate design has been followed while constructing this section of the road also remains to be seen.

Project Director, National Highways Authority of India, Ram Asra Khural, said traffic had been diverted.