Mumbai: An official from the Maharashtra government stated on Tuesday that sixteen workers were killed and three were injured after a crane collapsed on a bridge slab during the third phase of the Samruddhi Expressway's construction in the Thane district.
An NDRF spokesman added, "Three to five persons are still feared trapped and efforts are on to rescue them." Those who were hurt have been sent to a local hospital, he said.
It was a movable gantry crane designed for specific tasks, such as erecting bridges or setting up highway precast box girders.
The incident occurred shortly after midnight on Tuesday in the village of Sarlambe in the tehsil of Shahpur, some 80 kilometres from Mumbai, the official added.
The Samruddhi Mahamarg is a 701-kilometer motorway that runs between Mumbai and Nagpur and was named after Hindu Hrudaysamrat Balasaheb Thackeray, the former chief minister of Maharashtra.
Nagpur, Washim, Wardha, Ahmednagar, Buldhana, Aurangabad, Amravati, Jalna, Nashik, and Thane are just a few of the ten districts it passes through.
The Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation is responsible for building the Samruddhi Mahamarg.
In December 2022, Prime Minister Narendra Modi opened the first section, which links Nagpur to the holy city of Shirdi. The whole distance is 520 km.
On May 26th, 80 kilometres of the Samruddhi Mahamarg were opened between Bharvir village in Igatpuri taluka and Shirdi by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis.
In May, Shinde projected that by the end of current year (December), the third and final phase will be finished.
According to an official, 88 individuals have died in road accidents on the Samruddhi Motorway in Maharashtra over the past six months, 25 of them died last month when a private bus caught fire after hitting a divider.
The state highway police official blamed road hypnosis for some of the accidents that occurred on the six-lane, broad, access-controlled motorway.
Highway hypnosis or driving hypnosis is a condition when a driver zones out while driving a vehicle without remembering what occurred in that specific period.—Inputs from Agencies