Mumbai:
The Mumbai Traffic Police have a tough task at hand as they set out to identify the cause of yesterday's accident at Bandra-Worli Sea Link (BWSL), which proved fatal for two and resulted in eight people being injured.
For, despite the sea link being dotted with CCTV cameras, footage of the incident may not have been captured because the only camera which could have done it was pointing in another direction.
"The accident happened near pillar number 58, close to the Worli side, which has a narrow steep turn leading to Bandra.
The nearest CCTV camera is installed on pillar number R19, but, since the cameras are fully automatic and change their location every 15 seconds, it was pointing in another direction and may not have captured the accident," said a spokesperson of Mumbai Entry Point Ltd, which collects toll on BWSL.
Ranjeet Kamble (40), a resident of BDD Chawl in Worli, works as a contract driver with a Toyota showroom and had gone to his residence to pick up his children for a drive last afternoon.
One of his relatives said, "He came to pick up his kids but they were in school." He then went to an adjacent chawl and offered to take some kids and two women for a joyride on the sea link.
10 people were in Kamble's Toyota Altis when it rammed into a divider close to the Worli end at a speed of nearly 80 kmph, turning the vehicle into a veritable deathtrap.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Nandkumar Chaugule said, "The speeding car rammed into the concrete divider, which is at the connector towards the Worli-end of BWSL, at nearly 80 kmph. It then overturned on one of the lanes of the bridge."
Adding that daily commuters know about the short curve, he said, "When a driver who is new to the sea link comes in from the Worli side, he starts speeding on the curve.
The accident must have happened because of this. We have put up a concrete parabolic divider, which is 1 m in width, on the connector of the four lanes."
Asked about the most accident-prone zones on the sea link, Chaugule said, "The curves on both the Worli and Bandra ends are accident-prone zones for speeding vehicles.
The speed limit has been given and the vehicles have to be within that.
The MSRDC has also installed new radium guiding strips for vehicles travelling in the night and we will now tell them to put up something similar for motorists crossing the sea link in the day."
The victims were rushed to Bhabha Hospital and Chandrakala Mhetre (45) was declared dead on admission. Another woman, 50-year-old Bhanu Poojari, succumbed to her injuries around 8 pm.
"Poojari died due to blood clotting in her chest. One of the kids, Deepak (11), has sustained head injuries and he may be transferred to KEM as his condition is critical.
The driver, Kamble, suffered abdominal and pelvic trauma. He is on the ventilator and is also critical. Ajay Poojari (12) also suffered abdominal trauma. The other children suffered minor injuries.'
A doctor from Bhabha Hospital said, "A faint smell of alcohol could be detected from the driver. It may be a case of drink driving but we will have to wait until the blood test comes back before arriving at a conclusion."