Maharashtra: 20 dead as girder launcher collapses

Mumbai: At least 20 persons including ten labourers were crushed to death and three others injured as a girder launcher collapsed during the construction of a viaduct for the Samruddhi Expressway in Maharashtra's Thane district on early Tuesday morning, officials said.

The girder launcher along with a segment launcher (crane), weighing 700 tons, came crashing down from a height of 35 metres, the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) said in a release.

The deceased included two engineers, said the MSRDC, the executing agency of the expressway project that links Nagpur with Mumbai. Thane police registered an offence against two contractors for allegedly causing death by negligence following the incident.

The incident occurred sometime after midnight at Sarlambe village in Shahapur tehsil, around 80 km from Mumbai.

A total of 28 persons were working at the site when the girder launcher crashed. Five of them remained unhurt.

It was a special-purpose "mobile gantry crane" used in bridge construction and to install precast box girders in highway construction projects that collapsed while being shifted between two piers of the viaduct. (PTI)