Kolkata: The East-West Metro’s five-minute under-the-Hooghly journey on Wednesday morning was uneventful but the occasion momentous.
Construction of the twin tunnels that started at the Howrah Maidan end was completed without a hitch nearly six years ago. But barely 6.2km away, as a pair of TBMs traversed the congested Bowbazar neighbourhood, disaster struck. One of the TBMs hit an aquifer causing the ground above to cave-in, bringing down at least 23 houses and damaging several others. There were two more subsidences in the the area in 2022, further delaying the project.
With challenges yet to be resolved in the cave-in zone between Sealdah and Esplanade, KMRC and Metro authorities are trying to operate a truncated 4.8km service between Esplanade and Howrah Maidan from this year-end.
