Sand bags being dumped along Rajdanga Main Road to prevent a fresh cave-in. Picture by Pradip Sanyal

A Mackintosh Burn team on Thursday visited the part of Rajdanga Main Road, in Kasba, that caved in on Tuesday night.

“Sand bags are being dumped along the road to prevent another cave-in. We are seeking experts’ views on restoration,” said Nilmoni Dhar, the managing director of the state government undertaking.

The 1,200-sq-ft affected stretch is off the site of a Rs 400-crore mega project, Acropolis, which Mackintosh Burn is developing for the Merlin Group and the Calcutta Metropolitan Development Authority.

The project will comprise a 4,000-seat stadium, a 17-level business tower, a shopping mall with a four-screen multiplex and a three-level car park.

A ground beside the stretch was being dug up for the past three months to set up the car park. Dhar said the excavation was suspended following the cave-in. “Work will resume after we have built a wall to support the road. Steel plates are being used to shore up the edge of the road.”

Dhar admitted that a part of the road had developed cracks five days ago. “But we could not anticipate the cave-in. Water leaking from the underground pipe had loosened the soil, resulted in the subsidence.”

An adjacent five-storeyed building developed cracks and tilted forward after the subsidence, but a Mackintosh Burn official denied any link between the two. “The building has been leaning ever since it came up,” the official said.

Sujay Mukherjee, a structural engineer who lives in the building, said the implementing agency should start restoration work immediately. “They must do the needful. We are very concerned, although the building has not suffered any structural damage,” said Mukherjee.

The neighbourhood has been reeling under a water crisis since the cave-in, which is feared to have damaged the underground pipe. Around 200 of the residents went without water on Wednesday night.

The civic body has started fixing the pipe. “We hope the supply will be restored by Thursday night,” Dhar said.