In a tragic development, 22 commuters lost lives following a stampede at Elphinstone road railway bridge in Mumbai.
A spell of very heavy rain is said to have caused rumours of a short circuit among thousands of commuters who were on the railway bridge after alighting the suburban railway network. The rumours led to a stampede as everyone made a rush to escape from the bridge. At the time of filing this report, 22 commuters had lost lives and 40 more were rushed to nearby KEM hospital with serious injuries. Bodies of 17 were identified. Among the dead 14 are men and the rest are women.
According to Sada Sarvankar, local Shiv Sena legislator who was among the first to visit the accident spot along with Mumbai mayor Vishwanath Mahadeshwar, there were rumours of short circuit and bridge collapse which caused major panic among commuters.
To understand the scale of this tragic incident, one has to first understand the design of Elphinstone Road and Parel railway stations on western and central railway, respectively. A single bridge links the northern end of western railways' Elphinstone Road station and southern end of Parel railway station of the central railway. Thousands of commuters use this bridge daily as many prominent office complexes like One Indiabulls, Indiabulls Financial Centre and group headquarters of Motilal Oswal are situated nearby.
Elphinstone Road has just two platforms and only slow trains stop at this station. Similarly, Parel, too, is mainly the halt station for central railway's slow trains. The bridge is very narrow and the staircases are narrow, too. In peak office hours, the stations and the bridge are choc-a-bloc with people. Incidents like asthma attacks are routine for commuters on the bridge because of crowding.
Today, prior to the incident, four slow trains came to Parel and Elphinstone Road railway stations, simultaneously. Two of the trains were travelling to CSMT and Churchgate stations, while the other two were going in the northern direction to suburbs on central and western railway. Due to heavy rain in the morning, the bridge was already crowded with commuters waiting for the rain to stop. Passengers from the four trains also started waiting on the bridge. The crowd soon became unmanageable. Media reports suggest that a part of the tin roofing sheet collapsed during the crowding, triggering rumours of bridge collapse and short circuit.
Railway commuters have been demanding widening of the existing bridge and staircases as well as construction of another bridge in order to make the commute easy. In fact, when Suresh Prabhu was the railway minister, a commuter had asked him about widening of the existing bridges on Elphinstone Road, Parel and Currey Road stations. Prabhu told the commuters that this was an operations related issue and he could comment only on policy related issues.
"The shifting of commercial offices from South Mumbai to Central Mumbai on mill land has increased the density of people in this area without commensurate increase in entry and exit options for those using mass transport, unlike at the CST and Church gate in South Mumbai where there are multiple options. As a result, such disaster was just waiting to happen and will continue to remain a hanging sword till relevant entry-exit infrastructure is not upgraded," said Kailash Rajwadkar, a senior communications professional and a regular commuter of Mumbai suburban railway network.
The area where the tragic accident took place today is situated in Shiv Sena bastion. Sena has already expressed firm opposition to the Bullet Train project. There is anger among Sena legislators and corporators in BMC that their demands of improving existing infrastructure have not been heard. Shiv Sena is terming the incident as a man-made disaster. Sarvankar has now demanded that railway administration should be booked for the death of commuters.
Union railways minister Piyush Goyal has, meanwhile, landed in Mumbai and cancelled all his planned engagements. He is rushing to KEM hospital and will then visit the accident spot.
