Now Reading: Ludhiana sinkhole forces evacuation, firms face FIR after second cave-in
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Ludhiana sinkhole forces evacuation, firms face FIR after second cave-in
Ludhiana sinkhole forces evacuation, firms face FIR after second cave-in
A 25-foot-deep sinkhole opened on a road in Ludhiana's Kitchlu Nagar on Wednesday and then widened after a trolley passed over it on Thursday, forcing the evacuation of an adjacent three-storey house.…
The Story in Brief
A 25-foot-deep sinkhole opened on a road in Ludhiana's Kitchlu Nagar on Wednesday and then widened after a trolley passed over it on Thursday, forcing the evacuation of an adjacent three-storey house. The Ludhiana Municipal Corporation has said it will file an FIR against companies that laid underground cables after preliminary assessments pointed to damage to the sewer line. The house owner, Kamal Singhania, reported damage to the building's foundation.
The MC had filled a previous cave-in at the same spot in August with sandbags rather than fixing the cause, Singhania alleged. Zonal Commissioner Jasdev Singh Sekhon said a decades-old main sewer line collapsed. Union minister Ravneet Singh Bittu visited the site on Friday and blamed the state government and the MC for negligence. Social activists warned that the entire road running over the sewer could be unsafe.
The Indian Opinion
Everyone is happy to point fingers, the MC at private cable firms, politicians at the MC, and the house owner at everyone. The real story is a civic body that patched a road cave-in with sandbags and called it a day. Ludhiana's residents deserve to know how many other sewers in the city have been punctured by uncoordinated digging. The MC must release the sewer master plan and the list of cable-laying permits it issued. That inquiry will separate accountability from theatrics.
Sources (2): hindustantimes.com, hindustantimes.com (2)
This story was synthesised by AI from the 2 sources linked above.
Updated: this story now draws on 2 sources.
