FOB railing falls, narrow escape for commuters

MUMBAI: Commuters had a narrow escape as a piece of an iron railing fell from an under construction foot overbridge (FOB) during morning peak hour at the busy Lower Parel station on Thursday. Men engaged in welding on the bridge, which is likely to be inaugurated on February 28, carried on with their work, ignoring the screams of commuters.
The incident occurred at the northern end of platform 2 around 9.30am.
A 40-year-old woman commuter, Aishvarya Guhagarkar, who missed the metal piece by a split second, registered a complaint with the station master. She was accompanied by two male commuters, Atul Agnihotri and Sanjay Sankpal, who had also missed the railing by a fraction of a second.
“I was shocked when the metal landed close to my feet. A step further and it would have hit my head,” said Guhagarkar.
Section engineer P K Sharma, who reached the spot, said that work on the bridge is usually undertaken from 10am to 5pm. “On Thursday, work had begun early. It was stopped after the complaint,” he said.
While a work in progress board has been put up on the staircase leading to the bridge, no safety precautions, including nets, are in place, said commuters.