33 Hours, no food, no water: Mumbai-Pune expressway traffic jam finally ends

Traffic movement on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway resumed early today – after over 33 hours when a mishap on one of its lanes caused massive traffic pileup in what can only be described as Mumbai-Pune highway ‘Circle’ effect on social media networks and roads across Maharashtra.

Traffic mess after tanker overturns

Around 5 pm on Tuesday evening near Adoshi tunnel (in Khandala Ghat area), one of the lanes of Mumbai-Pune Expressway was completely closed for traffic bound towards Mumbai after a tanker overturned. Soon after, thousands of vehicles coming down from Pune city were forced to halt midway on the expressway as exits were blocked due to heavy traffic snarls.

The tanker which was carrying propylene gas also had a leak but due to inflammable nature of contents the highway stretch had to be closed and traffic was made to a complete standstill.

So stranded were the vehicles that commuters were stuck in their vehicles for more than 30 hours with hardly any food or water or toilet facilities available.

Stranded commuters suffer due to tanker mishap

This hugely affected women travellers, senior citizens, children, and patients the most who were stranded for hours together without food or water or proper restrooms. Videos and images of dejected commuters started trending on social media bringing the ire of users on authorities for not having a contingency plan for such eventualities on Mumbai-Pune Expressway which is one of the busiest state highways of Maharashtra.

During peak hours of traffic jam even up to 20 km of non-moving traffic was witnessed. Commuters vented their frustration online demanding faster resolutions while people stuck in traffic shared visuals of long tailbacks.

Even industrialist Dr. Sudhir Mehta who was stuck near Khandala Ghat was airlifted by helicopter.

Also Read: Mumbai-Pune Expressway traffic jam stretches beyond 12 hours after flammable gas tanker…

Traffic restored on Mumbai Pune Expressway

Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation’s (MSRDC) disaster management team, National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and some other agencies were successful in the dead of night transferring the contents of the leaked tanker into another truck.

Crane arrived and slowly dragged away the overturned tanker. Traffic flow on Mumbai-Pune Expressway resumed at around 1:46 am and vehicles were allowed to move slowly. Since there was backlog of traffic coming from Pune, vehicles continued to moving slowly for the next few hours till traffic movement became normal.