Traffic movement in Andheri West slowed to a crawl on Friday after a section of the road near the metro station caved in, prompting emergency repair work by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). Officials attributed the incident to a damaged underground sewer line, which caused the surface collapse near the T-junction leading to DN Nagar.
The incident forced authorities to close one lane for safety reasons while converting the opposite lane into a two-way route to ensure continued vehicular movement. Barricades were placed around the affected stretch to prevent accidents and maintain controlled traffic flow. According to civic officials, the sewer line beneath the collapsed section lies nearly 25 feet below the surface and is decades old. “The damaged concrete road will be opened to access and replace the faulty line. Given the depth and deterioration, the work is expected to take at least two days before the surface is restored,” a BMC official said.
The Maha Mumbai Metro Operation Corporation Ltd (MMMOCL) confirmed that the metro’s structural integrity and operations remain unaffected. “Our engineers, along with the BMC team, have inspected the site. The metro structure is safe, and all services continue as normal,” an MMMOCL spokesperson stated. While the immediate concern is restoring traffic and repairing the sewer line, the cave-in underscores Mumbai’s ongoing struggle with ageing underground infrastructure. Experts say that recurrent incidents of subsidence and road collapse reflect long-term underinvestment in preventive maintenance and weak coordination between civic departments and utilities.
Urban planning specialists note that the pressure on Mumbai’s civic infrastructure has intensified due to rapid urbanisation, high vehicular density, and construction stress from large-scale metro and redevelopment projects. “What we are seeing are symptoms of overburdened underground networks that have outlived their design life. Unless BMC adopts a proactive inspection and renewal plan, such failures will continue to disrupt mobility and pose safety risks,” said an urban infrastructure analyst. In response, BMC officials said that regular audits of sewer and stormwater lines are being strengthened under the city’s road resilience programme, with a focus on high-traffic corridors and ageing utility zones. The civic body plans to integrate real-time monitoring of critical infrastructure through digital mapping and AI-based predictive maintenance in the coming years.
For now, repair crews continue round-the-clock work at the Andheri site, with normal traffic movement expected to resume once the sewer line is replaced and the road surface restored early next week.
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