A pool of rainwater stagnant on the four-lane Tirunelveli-Nagercoil National Highway has led to Tuesday’s fatal accident near Nanguneri that claimed lives of five persons from Kerala.
During investigation, the Nanguneri police found that the water stagnating on the highway had triggered the gory accident. “Since one of the two lanes was bumpy, the driver, who was driving at a high speed, swerved the vehicle to the other lane where rainwater was stagnating. On hitting the pool, the water got splashed on the windscreen and obstructed the driver’s view and the vehicle got swerved to the left before overturning,” a policeman, who reached the accident spot within a next few minutes and expedited the rescue operation, said.
In a similar accident near the flyover at Kovaneri near Valliyoor, A. Abdul Nazar of Tirupur and his wife Ajitha Begum were killed on the spot on May 6, 2013, when their sedan hit the rainwater stagnating on the highway.
Though there was a huge hue and cry from the public immediately after the mishap, especially from road users to rectify this danger, no step was taken to drain the rainwater stagnating on the highway. As anticipated, the stagnant rainwater at this point once again triggered a major accident on October 30, 2013, in which six persons of a family from Alankottai in Kanyakumari district were killed after the car in which they were travelling hit the pool and got swerved to the right to hit the bridge violently. Though this busy stretch at Ponnaakudi, Paanaankulam, Nanguneri, Vaagaikulam, Valliyoor and Panagudi is in bad shape with serious undulations, no step has been taken to set things right. Damaged steel medians at several places have been left as such and no step has been taken to close the small passages created by the villagers by breaking the median to cross the hurdle in their bikes.
Chairman, FEDCOT, D.A. Prabakar, who is also the member of District Road Safety Council, said Collector M. Karunakaran, following a representation from him, had given specific instructions to the representatives of National Highways Authority of India to ensure safe roads to the public paying hefty toll for their travel. “When I pointed out this serious issue on four occasions in the past, the Collector gave instructions to the NHAI to take immediate steps to give slight gradient in the problematic areas to drain rainwater immediately. However, no action has been taken to set things right and the accidents continue to consume innocent lives,” Dr. Prabakar said. He charged that the NHAI would never send its senior officials to attend this meeting even after Collector’s instruction. “We’ve recorded everything including the Collector’s instruction, the NHAI’s failure to translate the instruction into action, the lower level officials attending the road safety meeting despite specific instruction from the Collector etc., in the minutes of the meeting. With the Collector’s permission, the FEDCOT will soon send a letter to the NHAI to make its roads safer,” he said.
