`We don't have adequate cranes'

new delhi: sunday morning's accident in which a truck plunged into the yamuna triggered off a frenzied search for cranes in the city. none of the departments had cranes for such an emergency. finally, the traffic police and the fire department had to hire cranes. a fire official said every emergency required a different kind of crane. sunday's incident, which required the crane to cantilever the truck's body, could be done only by a heavy-duty crane, officials present at the spot said.although the fire department has four cranes, none of them are useful in a situation like this. on sunday, the fire department had to hire two cranes from sanjay enclave in east delhi. even the disaster management centre, set up under the fire department after the gujarat earthquake, does not have a crane. interestingly, the fire department had conducted a survey of ``earth-moving machines'' owned by different construction companies. ``under the disaster management action plan, we had decided to sign agreements with these companies to provide machines on hire,'' a fire official said. hiring charges can vary from rs 2,500 to rs 5,000. the traffic police department, too, does not have heavy-duty cranes. it reportedly hired a crane from shahdara at a cost of rs 2,500. joint commissioner (traffic) maxwell periera said his department was not geared for this kind of emergency. ``this requires heavy-duty cranes which can cantilever heavy things, while retaining a strong hold on the ground,'' he said. most traffic cranes ^ there are around 20 of them ^ are used for towing vehicles, he said. ``the department maintains a record of the addresses of places where cranes are available. hiring cranes is a usual practice,'' pereira said. this problem, however, is not new. cranes were not available even during the wazirabad tragedy in which several children were drowned when their school bus fell into the river. ``even the hired crane was lighter and we had to make 150 persons stand on it to be able to haul up the bus,'' an official from the fire department said.