Tanker carrying oil topples on Mumbai-Pune Expressway

Pune: An oil spill from a tanker on Saturday resulted in disruption of vehicular traffic along Mumbai-Pune expressway, causing inconvenience for commuters.

The tanker which turned turtle

The incident took place on Saturday around 8.30 am when the tanker carrying oil heading from Mumbai-Pune expressway way hit the diverter and toppled at Khandala exit four point resulting in slow-moving traffic.

Tanker

The two lanes were then closed and traffic was diverted to old Mumbai- Pune highway. "The traffic was restored in the afternoon after putting a layer of loose earth on the affected surface," police said.

Workers clearing the oil.

According to expressway control room, "The impact of accident led to oil spreading upto 48 kilometers. The process of clearing is going on. We had initially closed two lanes but later we opened one lane after clearing. However, passengers still complained about road being slippery. To avoid more chaos, the traffic was diverted to old highway via Lonavala to Khopoli."

However, a serpentine queue of vehicles was moving at a snail's pace because of the backlog that was being cleared slowly, a passenger said.