Hundreds of litres of diesel spilled onto the Dwarka Expressway after an oil tanker overturned on a flyover near Goyla Dairy in southwest Delhi’s Chhawla area on Tuesday night, the police said on Wednesday. Traffic was diverted to the service road for several hours as authorities worked to prevent any untoward incident and clear the stretch.
Soon after news of the spill spread, several people from nearby localities reached the spot carrying buckets and cans to collect the diesel flowing down from the flyover through water drainage pipes. Videos purportedly showing people filling containers with the spilled fuel surfaced on social media.
Deputy commissioner of police (Dwarka) Kushal Pal Singh said the police control room received information about the accident at around 9.15pm on Tuesday.
“A call regarding overturning of a diesel tanker on Tajpur flyover on Najafgarh to Dwarka carriageway of the Dwarka Expressway was received. A team from Chhawla police station immediately reached the flyover and found a tanker belonging to Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited overturned and diesel spilling out from the tank,” Singh said.
Police said no one was found injured at the accident site. The diesel spilling from the tanker spread across the road, prompting police to divert traffic to the adjoining service lane as a precautionary measure.
“As precautionary measures to avoid any untoward incident, traffic was diverted on the adjacent service road and concerned HPCL officials were informed about the incident. They sent their teams that carried out their vehicle recovery, diesel leakage stoppage, and clearing the spilled oil from the road operations using their technologies,” the DCP said.
The tanker driver and others travelling in the vehicle were questioned regarding the incident. Police said no complainant approached them in connection with the accident and added that efforts were underway to ascertain what caused the tanker to overturn.
