Chennai: Cracks appear on Anna Salai road; inspection clears patch safe

Fresh fissures appeared today on the arterial Anna Salai road here close to the spot where a stretch caved in suddenly two days ago and trapped a bus and a car.

Traffic came to a halt in the morning peak hour as the panic-stricken motorists noticed the cracks near Anna Flyover, near the site of underground tunnelling for the Metro Rail project.

The authorities swung into action and deployed drillers to ascertain the depth of the cracks.

Convinced of its safety, they declared the road fit for motoring. Traffic was disrupted for an hour, officials said.

On Sunday, around 35



passengers onboard a metropolitan transport corporation bus and the sole occupant of a car had a miraculous escape when their vehicles plunged into the crater that formed suddenly near the flyover. 

The stretch was repaired on a warfooting and thrown open to traffic yesterday.

After inspecting the spot on Sunday, State Finance Minister D Jayakumar had said the authorities would take the incident as an experience to prevent such ocurrence.

"Normally, soil test is conducted randomly whenever metro rail officials take up tunnelling work. We will take this incident as an experience," he had said.