Highway subsides

ON AUGUST 8, a stretch of NationalHighway (NH)-33 caved in due to anunderground coal fire. The road connectsRanchi in Jharkhand with Bihar'scapital, Patna. The subsided half-kilometrestretch is near Kujju in Ramgarhdistrict of Jharkhand. Another suchunderground fire is inching close to theBermo-Chandrapura-Dhanbad highwayand is threatening the railwaytracks running parallel to it.

Fire has been raging in the coalmineof the Central Coalfield Limited (CCL)for the past one decade and is spread ona three-kilometre stretch beneath theroad. On August 20, the fire spreadfurther to the traffic diversion routecreated to avoid the stretch.Jharkhand Governor K Sankaranarayananpulled up the Ramgarh districtadministration and CCL for inaction andissued a show-cause notice to thedeputy commissioner to explain whythe fire was not doused in five years.

The district administration in turnblamed CCL that abandoned the minethree years ago. CCL was apprised of thefire threat to NH-33 at least seven timessince July when cracks were firstnoticed. But there was no effort to curbthe fire, said Arun Sinha, deputy commissionerof Ramgarh. It is sheer providencethat no vehicle was passing whenthe road subsided, said Sinha. Villagershave erected barricades to prevent vehiclesfrom falling into the large crater.

CCL swung into action after the governorasked it to furnish a detailed planto douse the fire. "We are trying to constructa permanent road bypass," said RK Saha, chairperson-cum-managingdirector of CCL. He admitted thatCCL action was delayed. The companyhas, meanwhile, started stowing sand tocheck the coalfire that threatens a highwayand railway lines near Bermo inBokaro district.

District administration officials saythe sand filling process is going on at aslow pace. In January, CCL was told threetruckloads of sand is hardly enough tocheck the fire, an official said.