Hero Honda underpass opens after 50 hours
GURUGRAM: Hero Honda Chowk underpass in Gurugram opened to commuters on Thursday morning, nearly 50 hours after it was closed due to massive waterlogging on Tuesday.
According to officials of Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA), about 50 million litres water was finally cleared from the underpass around 3am and about seven more hours were spent in cleaning the ‘muck and sediment which had settled inside the underpass.’
“The underpass was opened to traffic around 10am after water was drained out at 3 in the morning. Workers spent seven hours in clearing the underpass and preventing vehicles from skid- ding off the surface and resulting in accidents,” Lalit Arora, superintending engineer, GMDA, said.
Arora said seven fire tenders and five motor pumps were used for nearly 43 hours continuously since Tuesday morning to clear out the rainwater.
“Through connected pipelines, the water was channelled to the Badshahpur drain from two points — one through the drain located along the service lane of the Delhi-gurgaon Expressway at Hero Honda Chowk and another on the Sector 10 A end from the drain which is connected to Sector 34 and ends at Badshahpur drain,” V Umashankar, chief exwecutive officer (CEO), GMDA, said.
According to GMDA officials, the motor pumps and fire tenders were used continuously to drain out rainwater.
Officials from four agencies — the GMDA, NHAI, fire department and the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) — worked in close coordination to open the underpass to traffic.
At an interval of approximately 10 hours, officials in lifeboats measured the depth of rainwater to estimate the volume of water inside. By Wednesday evening, rainwater was estimated to have receded to 10 million litres.
Officials said that at 3am on Wednesday, rainwater was completely drained out of the underpass.