 |
Bhubaneswar, July 31: A large portion of the boundary wall of Capital Hospital caved in this morning.
This comes a day after a wall running parallel to the railway tracks at Jatni collapsed killing a girl. No one was injured in today’s accident.
During heavy rain this morning, a nearly 50-feet stretch of the boundary wall near the hospital’s eye department collapsed. The rubble fell into the drain beside it.
Sources said slum dwellers living in the area went to attend nature’s call near the wall at that time.
“Luckily, no one was beside the wall when it caved in,” said Gurupad Samant, who stays nearby.
Chief medical officer of the hospital Sudarshan Dash said he had visited the spot when he got to know of the accident.
“The walls had been constructed more than 40 years ago. Several construction and repair works had been going on beside the wall. Work of drainage and underground cable laying had been going on close to the boundary wall. All this made the wall weak,” said Dash adding that it was lucky that no one was present near the wall when it collapsed.
Dash said the public works department officials had inspected the wall and later begun repairing it. “We have requested the public works department officials to check other parts of the boundary wall as well and take necessary steps to repair the weak portions too,” he said.
East Coast Railway authorities today broke the remaining portions of the wall that was tilting dangerously towards the road used by the residents of Kudiari market in Jatni. The authorities also cleared all garbage dumped near the boundary wall and started constructing a new wall parallel to the tracks.
A 10-year-old girl was killed and her father was injured when the wall collapsed on their motorcycle last evening. Two others coming behind them were also injured. The incident had sparked tension in the area and irate local residents blocked the road to Pipili. They also blocked the railway tracks disrupting railway services for more than five hours.
Consecutive wall collapse incidents have created panic among the people using roads beside the boundary walls of government establishments.
“During the rainy season, the chances of these walls collapsing becomes more because of lack of maintenance. We will be very careful while using these roads from now onwards,” said Santosh Sethi, a resident of Unit-VII.
Rupesh Nath, a state government employee, said that a number of government buildings were in a dilapidated state and this was dangerous for the people using those. Recently, the wall of an anganwadi centre collapsed at Nayagarh killing six children.
An official of the public works department said they would conduct check whenever any government establishment informs them about their weak walls. “If authorities of the office concerned want, the department will carry out the repair and maintenance work,” said an official.