BROUGHT DOWN: A billboard along Chetpet bridge that crashed on Wednesday night due to rain. — PHOTO: R. Ragu

CHENNAI : Motorists and pedestrians who braved the peak hour traffic and evening showers on Thursday on Brindavan Street in West Mambalam had a close shave when a giant hoarding atop a building came crashing down.

The hoarding gave way because of the winds and rain and came down with a huge thud around 5.45 p.m., sending residents into a panic. Its metal and concrete structure dangled from the edge of the building. The building suffered damage and the TV cables running alongside were cut. However, no one was injured.

Traffic police rushed to the spot to regulate traffic and prevent crowds from gathering. By night, some of the metal girders still lay in the way of traffic.

On Wednesday night, in a similar incident, another hoarding atop a building by the Chetpet Bridge, crashed onto an adjacent building.

This is not for the first time that hoardings have crashed during rain.

Last year, a hoarding crashed bang on a car during peak hour traffic opposite Ripon Buildings, the Chennai Corporation headquarters. The driver had a miraculous escape.

Even by very conservative estimates, the city has more than 4,500 hoardings. Nearly 1,000 of them have come up in contravention to a Supreme Court ruling in 2001 that ordered the Chennai Corporation to accept applications and issue licences for putting up hoardings.

The civic agency received 3,609 applications but licensing was postponed. The powers to license hoardings have since been transferred to the Chennai Collectorate.

In the last few years, there has been a blatant increase in the number of hoardings in the city. Most buildings along main roads have hoardings atop their terraces. The building owners enter into arrangements with advertisement companies, including some fly-by-night operators, to erect the hoardings as a way to make some easy money. Though such hoardings are illegal, the owners manage to get electrical connections and set up high-intensity halogen lamps.

Consumer groups and residents' welfare associations have raised concern over the safety of hoardings on previous occasions. It is mandatory for all legal hoardings to carry structural stability certificates by Public Works Department.

But with the licensing itself yet to commence, activists wonder if safety of pedestrians and motorists would be a focus.

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