Canacona: Traffic was thrown out of gear for five hours as a container truck fell on its side on NH66 at Poinguinim. The accident disrupted traffic for several hours through a section of the busy NH66 road near Poinguinim in Canacona taluka early morning on Tuesday.
Though there were no reports of any casualties in the accident, which happened after the driver lost control, as the trailer was turning at a not so deep turn on NH66 at Khawat near to Poinguinim at about 5.00am on Tuesday. As the 14 tyre multi-axle truck carrying industrial installations from Verna to Kerala lay on its side occupying the entire stretch including the shoulders of the road on one side; vehicles coming from both the sides got stranded till 10.00am.
While all the heavy transport vehicles were instructed by the authorities to halt till further instructions at Polem and Charasta; other motor vehicles were diverted through an internal road passing through Sadolxem village. Government officers including Deputy Collector, Mamlatdar, Police Inspector and Traffic cell incharge of Canacona immediately reached the accident site and took stock of the situation.
The authorities came out with a contingency plan and in a stop gap arrangement cleaned up the area on one side of the road and succeeded in diverting all the vehicular traffic over that stretch by 10.00am.
“The NH66 stretch between Polem till Balli is known for bad road engineering, even high school students know the formula to calculate road banking at the curves on the road, but the PWD authorities who are diploma or degree holders in civil engineering has constructed the roads without required road banking which is a major cause for accidents on this stretch” lamented Ajay Bhagat, ex chairperson of Canacona municipality.
Together with bettering the NH66, locals in Canacona have been demanding a heavy duty crane to be kept stand by in cases of emergencies like this” said a local activist. Sources said that since the NH66 remained blocked for considerable time police are contemplating to file a case against the driver of the truck.
