Boulder falls, blocks Thane highway

THANE: Vehicular movement on the pivotal Mumbra bypass road was disrupted Tuesday morning after a colossal boulder from the Parsik hills dislodged and plummeted onto the primary carriageway leading towards Thane, authorities informed. Fortunately, no casualties were reported in the incident, officials informed.
The incident was reported around 10am, mere minutes after a municipal team that was operating in the vicinity to clear the waterlogged segment of the highway had departed.The traffic flow towards Thane was impacted since early morning due to water accumulation, prompting a civic rescue team to hasten to the location and deploy an excavator to remove debris off a portion of the foothills which was obstructing the natural flow of water from the mountain streams, informed a civic official.
Scarcely minutes after the team vacated the spot, an enormous boulder that was embedded in the mud got dislodged, ostensibly due to the vibrations of the excavator, and cascaded down onto the highway. Consequently, traffic on the highway was halted temporarily, apprehending a landslide, following which a rescue team was summoned back to the location to clear the boulder off the road, informed Yasin Tadvi, in-charge at the Thane regional disaster management cell.