In front of a cinema on the Big Bazaar Street, near the Good Shed Road junction and railway underpass, the Coimbatore City Traffic Police is busy managing traffic.
Right on the middle of the road, the police have placed two barricades to divert the traffic and in the middle of the barricaded place is a huge cavity.
The bitumen topping has given way to expose the broken underground sewage pipeline.
This arrangement has been going on since Sunday evening when the pipeline burst pulling down the road surface, says a police officer.
Coimbatore Corporation sources say that pipeline, made of concrete, carried sewage from R.S. Puram and areas north thereof to the sewage treatment plant in Ukkadam.
It was an old pipeline, laid at least three decades ago.
The officials add that they have written to the police and the Highways Department to take up the pipe replacement work, which they will carryout either on Monday night or Tuesday night, without affecting the flow of traffic.
The police officer says they have asked the corporation to carryout the work only at night to prevent traffic jam on the busy, congested stretch. And finish the work within a night.
The corporation officials have told them they would do so depending on the availability of pipeline.
The corporation sources add that at first sight it looks like only one pipeline has been damaged but they cannot say so for sure as only digging the surface will reveal the true picture.
