Sunday Dawns dark

The stretch is being constructed by M/s Gammon India Ltd.

The incident occurred opposite the Lady Shriram College in South Delhi on Central-Secretariat-Badarpur line. Both DMRC and the Delhi government have ordered an inquiry.

The contractors and DMRC officials had allegedly ignored a crack in the pier,which the workers had pointed out earlier.

Around 30 construction workers,including the deceased site engineer,Anshuman Pratihar,28,were at work. The other deceased includes Niranjan,18,Badan Singh,35,Bhan Singh,25,Amit Kumar,24, and Pappu,28.

“Of the 12 segments between pier numbers 67 and 68,five had been built. The launching girder had collapsed as pier number 67 gave way,” said Anuj Dayal,DMRC spokesperson. “There was a defect in the pier cap on pillar 67 which caused the displacement.”

The locals were woken by a rumble followed by a loud crash at 4.57 am. “We thought it was an earthquake or a bomb blast and rushed out of our homes,” said Bhairon Singh,21,a resident.

The impact of the girder hitting the ground burst a DJB pipeline running sic feet underground and the area was soon under knee-deep water.

Electric connection too,had to be snapped as heavy cranes were put at work to remove the debris. There were apprehensions that they could entangled in the wires,said Dayal.

But the six 250-tonne cranes one 400-tonne crane failed to dislodge the fallen launcher and pull out the buried workers. For the next few hours,over 100 engineers — apart from police,civil defence and Fire department officials — struggled with the rescue operations.

By 9.30 am,three bodies and eight injured people were pulled out of the rubble.

The incident is the second after a similar collapse on Vikas Marg on October 19,2008,in which two people died and over a dozen were injured.

A case of negligence under Section 304 A has been filed at the Amar Colony police station. Joint Commissioner of Police,Southern Range,Ajai Kashyap said: “No official complaint,however,has been received yet. Further action will be taken after investigations.”

The estimated direct loss due to the accident is said to be nearly Rs 6 crore. Also,the accident and the following investigations have pushed back the completion of the Central Secretariat- Badarpur by at least three months. The deadline for commissioning the corridor was September 2010.