THE GOAN NETWORK
CANACONA
In yet another mishap involving heavy vehicles on the overburdened and narrow NH-66, traffic was blocked for five long hours on Sunday morning as an inter-state passengers bus coming from Mangalore was hit by an oncoming inter-state truck headed to Karwar.
According to sources, the inter-state passengers bus bearing registration no PY-05-8066 was coming from Mangalore and headed towards Panaji when it was hit by an oncoming inter-state truck bearing registration no KA-34 B-5889 at about 8 am on Sunday.
The truck was headed in the opposite direction towards Karwar.
The heavy vehicles hit each other with such an impact that a crane was requisitioned to pry them apart.
Meanwhile, the light traffic was diverted through the narrow road of Khawat, bringing some relief to commuters. However, most other traffic was stranded on either side of the accident site for almost 5 hours.
Highway traffic was finally restored by 12.30 pm on Sunday.
With no news of a crane reaching the site to clear the blockade, some of the concerned residents requested the contractor at the under-construction 4-lane road M/s M V R company to finally separate and move both the vehicles away from the road.
Stating that the Canacona Disaster Management Authority badly needed to be equipped with a crane, social activist Nishant Prabhudessai informed that this was the second mishap in two days on this accident prone narrow stretch of the NH-66, and that both times the DMA failed to address the issue in the absence of a crane.
"Canacona police should be necessarily equipped with a crane to redress the disasters being regularly encountered on this route, endangering human life as well as property," Prabhudessai said.
It may be recalled that following the unabated streak of mishaps on Karmalghat-Polem section of NH-66 road which noticed substantial increase in heavy traffic, Canacona MLA Isidore Fernandes had sought for strict implementation of traffic rules and proper attention by DMA, and also assured to raise the issue in the forthcoming assembly session.
