Photos of a large crack on the wall of a metro station in Hyderabad surfaced on social media on Thursday, leading to panic after a woman died last month at a metro station. In an appeal to commuters, the Hyderabad Metro Rail Limited (HMRL) said that there was no reason to panic.
Posting an image of the crack, one Twitter user said, "Poor quality of construction of Hyderabad Metro was once again exposed at Prakash Nagar Metro station."
@hmrgov Poor quality of construction of
— Mallesham Jampelli (@MJampelli) October 10, 2019
Hyderabad Metro
was once again exposed at Prakash Nagar Metro station. pic.twitter.com/ZJjkCpBAQ0
However, HMRL MD N V S Reddy said that the crack had already been rectified, and asked the general public not to believe the old photos that were circulating on social media.
"Some old pictures of surface crack rectification works etc, are being posted and circulated by some persons. As I mentioned, we are closely monitoring the rectification works by L&T and there is no need for pressing the panic button," Reddy tweeted.
"At some places, the plaster is thicker, and at such places, the plaster and surface cracks are being removed and rectified by six L&T teams during the night, with boom lifts and other equipment, without obstruction to traffic," he added.
Prakashnagar stn wall surface crack after rectification pic.twitter.com/SfrpxBWW3N
— MD HMRL (@md_hmrl) October 10, 2019
Last month, the death of a 24-year-old woman who was standing under a metro station had caused wide outrage. Mounika was taking shelter from the rain at the pedestrian zone under the Ameerpet metro station when a chunk of mortar from the station fell on her.
Larsen and Toubro (L&T) had agreed to pay Rs 20 lakh as compensation to the victim’s family, besides another Rs 15 lakh from an insurance company and offered a job to a family member.
The Commissioner of Metro Rail Safety (CMRS) also initiated a probe into the incident. Municipal Administration and Urban Development Minister KT Rama Rao ordered an inquiry to check the quality of metro rail structures.