Mumbai Metro Crane Topples, Traffic Disrupted

Mumbai, Apr 15 (PTI) A heavy crane in use at a Metro rail construction site at Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) in Mumbai toppled early Wednesday morning, causing traffic snarls in the busy business district, officials said.

While no one was injured in the incident, authorities imposed a fine of Rs 1 crore on contractor J Kumar Infraprojects Limited.

The work of restoring the crane was going on even late in the evening and traffic had to be diverted, officials of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) said.

The incident occurred around 4.30 am during the construction of the BKC Metro Line 2B station. "A mobile crane weighing approximately 400 tons toppled near the Asian Heart Hospital junction due to some mechanical failure while lifting a pre-cast beam," the MMRDA said in a post on X.

"A 600-ton capacity crane is being deployed to safely remove this toppled crane," it added.


"As per our initial investigation, there was a gear failure in the lifting boom of one crane. After the failure, the load shifted to another crane, which caused it to tilt," said an official.

Due to space constraints caused by the ongoing bullet train station project at BKC, both cranes were stationed on the road, the official said.

Metro Line 2B between Andheri West and Mandale is being constructed in phases. Earlier this month, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis inaugurated the first phase between Mandale and Chembur.



On February 14, a person died and three others were injured after a slab of a girder bridge of Metro-4 collapsed on the road below in Mulund in eastern suburbs.