Crane damages Parel pipeline

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The weight of a crane carrying out monorail work outside Tata Memorial Hospital caused leakage in a water pipeline late on Thursday night.
The damaged water main supplies potable water to hospitals like Tata Memorial, King Edward Memorial, Wadia Maternity and Wadia Children as well as Haffkine Institute. Even the residents of Parel and Byculla didn’t have any water supply on Friday.
“A 180mm-water supply pipeline cracked on Thursday at around 1.30 am on Friday at E. Moses Road near Tata Hospital while the erection of monorail (Phase-II) guide way beam was in progress. The load of the 90-tonne crane proved too much for the water supply pipeline, which was not encased. The repair work began immediately as the emergency team from BMC’s F-South Ward rushed to the spot. The flow of water was controlled in the night itself by closing the valve. The repair work is expected to be completed by Friday evening,” said Dilip Kawathkar, joint project director, public relations, MMRDA.
Another MMRDA official added, “The road where work was underway is narrow. This resulted in the crane jumping onto the footpath.”
A civic officer pointed out that since the hospitals are under emergency services, they have two water lines and only one of the lines was dry on Friday.
At KEM Hospital, a few wards were affected due to the incident whereas, Tata Memorial Hospital had adequate water in their storage tanks to meet the day’s requirement.
MMRDA officials claimed that lack of utility maps combined with over half-a-century old water system are also the reasons for such an accident.