Uprooted tree blocks traffic in Candolim

Calangute: Locals and tourists were unharmed when a huge tree came crashing down on the main Candolim-Calangute road near the Candolim primary health centre on Tuesday at around 7.30pm. Traffic on the arterial road was blocked till 4am.
A witness said that some of the branches broke due to strong winds. This resulted in the tree trunk getting uprooted and tilting dangerously."As soon as we saw what was happening, we blocked traffic and stopped people from walking through the area," the witness said.
Panch member Dharmendra Candolkar, who resides nearby, rushed to the spot and called the police and Pilerne fire brigade at 7.38pm. Candolkar said that the uprooting of the tree trunk resulted in an underground PWD water pipe breaking as the roots of the tree had grown around the old cast iron pipe, leading to water leaking all over the area.
The fallen branches made it difficult for PWD workers to gain access to the broken pipe. With the tree trunk tilting dangerously, the firemen were also reluctant to climb up to cut off the other branches. "We could not risk the lives of our firemen as the tree trunk would have crashed at any moment," a fireman said.
A fire brigade from Panaji was also rushed to the spot to help with the removal of the branches. The operation to clear the fallen tree came to a close at around 3.30am, after which traffic flow was restored. After a portion of the fallen tree had been cleared, PWD workers began to dig the area where the water pipe had ruptured to trace the broken pipes.