Chennai metro rail to run under 1500 buildings
Chennai – The underground tunnels of Chennai metro rail project will cross atleast 1,500 buildings in different locations covering a distance of 23 km.
The tunnels would run beneath several commercial and residential areas on Washermanpet- Mannadi-High Court, May Day Park-Central, Shenoy Nagar-Pachaiyappa’s and Shenoy Nagar-Anna Nagar stretches.
As per plan initiated by Delhi Metro Rail Corporation Limited (DMRC), the phase I of Chennai metro rail (CMRL) project will be planned as two corridors. The first starts from Washermanpet and ends at the Chennai International Airport covering a distance of 23.1 km with 11 underground and six elevated stations.
The second corridor starts from Chennai Central Railway Station and ends at St.Thomas Mount covering a distance of 22 kms with nine underground and eight elevated stations.
Recently, tunneling work in Mannadi resulted in cracks in two buildings and surrounding areas on Prakasam Salai and Meera Labbai Street. The incident occurred when the work was carried out some 60 metres away from the Metro Rail’s proposed Mannadi station.
Tunnel Boring Machine(TBM) has crossed 400 buildings on the stretch and it was just 10 meters away from the two buildings which developed cracks. As per CMRL sources, the remaining work will be completed in the next five days.
According to some people, the foundation of buildings could be weak and hence the cracks occurred. The change in settlement of old buildings built using lime and mortar may be the reason for cracking, they said. CMRL officials said that tilt and crack meters have been installed which will assess readings in every two hours. They assured that the changed settlement of the buildings will become normal very soon.
Last month, CMRL tunneling also faced few problems when a small portion of road on EVR Periyar Salai caved in. Earlier a shop’s interior was damaged in Mannadi when concrete that was poured for underground work leaked through an unclosed borewell. Some residents had filed a case in the Madras High Court against the underground network cutting through their residential area, but unfortunately, they lost the case.
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