Drivers who were stuck on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway for nearly two days were seen sleeping inside their vehicles as traffic slowly began to move again after a long halt. The jam, which lasted close to 32 hours as per PTI, was caused by a gas tanker that overturned in the Khandala Ghat area.
Officials removed the overturned tanker with the help of cranes and reopened the Pune-to-Mumbai stretch at around 1.40 am on Thursday. Both lanes towards Pune and Mumbai are now open. However, authorities said it will take time for traffic to return to normal because of heavy congestion, especially near Lonavala, where queues are still between 5 and 10 kilometres long.
Bizarre scenes: Drivers slept on highway, had to be woken up
With traffic blocked for about 20 to 22 kilometres, many motorists parked their vehicles and rested overnight. Some did not realise that the road had reopened in the early hours of the morning. Traffic police teams were seen walking along the long queues, knocking on car windows and waking drivers so that vehicles can start moving and traffic can clear.
In the Pune region, from Khandala Pass to Vadgaon Maval, many vehicles remained stuck on both the expressway and older routes through the night. While traffic in the Bor Ghat area has mostly cleared, police are concentrating on waking up drivers who fell asleep and breaking up pockets of congestion.
Commuters expressed relief after spending the night inside their vehicles with limited access to food, water and toilet facilities. Hundreds of people, including women and children, were trapped in the traffic jam for several hours.
Industrialist exits jam via helicopter
The severe traffic jam on the Pune–Mumbai Expressway forced industrialist Dr Sudhir Mehta to return to Pune by helicopter after being stuck on the road for eight hours. In posts on social media platform X, he said that lakhs of people had been stranded on the expressway for nearly 18 hours because of a single gas tanker accident. He stressed the need for better emergency planning, suggesting that exit points should be created at different locations on the expressway so vehicles can be turned back during such situations.
Dr Mehta also said that building helipads is not very expensive and does not require much land. He suggested that helipads should be made compulsory at several locations near the expressway to allow emergency evacuations when traffic comes to a halt. He also thanked Union minister Nitin Gadkari for helping him reach Pune after the long wait.
Sharing what he saw on the ground, the industrialist said the expressway had turned chaotic, with vehicles moving in all directions, including on the wrong side. He added that the highway, which is a key link for the region, is getting worse with time. According to him, travelling on the expressway has become risky and can take several extra hours, making each journey feel unsafe and unpredictable.
What led to the chaos?
As mentioned above, traffic on the 94.5-kilometre Mumbai–Pune Expressway came to a complete standstill after a tanker carrying highly flammable propylene gas overturned on Tuesday evening. The accident happened around 5 pm in the Khandala Ghat area of Raigad district. The tanker reportedly lost control while going downhill, overturned on the slope and began leaking gas. As a safety step, authorities immediately closed the lanes heading towards Mumbai.
Drone footage shared by officials showed long lines of vehicles stretching nearly 20 to 22 kilometres, underlining the severe disruption on India’s first six-lane, access-controlled concrete expressway that connects Mumbai, Raigad, Navi Mumbai and Pune.
Even though the tanker has since been removed and traffic has been allowed to move again, officials said it will take time for the situation to fully return to normal as the backlog of stranded vehicles is still being cleared.
Emergency teams from the National Disaster Response Force, State Disaster Response Force, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited and the highway police were sent to the site. Their role was to secure the area, safely manage the gas transfer and ensure the tanker was removed without any further danger.
‘Does the government or the administration ever learn anything?’: Raj Thackeray
Raj Thackeray, the chief of Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), slammed the state government in a post on X over its handling of the shutdown. He highlighted the severe hardship faced by thousands of commuters who were left stranded for nearly a day and a half, who had to bear significant suffering due to the everlasting blockage.
He pointed out that, as has become routine in such cases, the government responded only by ordering an inquiry—despite a history of similar incidents followed by repeated probes that appear to yield no meaningful change.
Thackeray questioned whether the administration or government truly learns from these events or if they simply repeat the cycle without improvement.
Thackeray noted that the expressway, built 24 years ago under the vision of his late father, Balasaheb Thackeray, has not seen serious efforts to anticipate various disasters or maintain consistently high-quality infrastructure across its entire length. In his view, the only aspect handled promptly and efficiently over these decades has been toll collection.
To address the immediate fallout, he demanded that the government refund the toll fees collected from passengers during the disruption period.
Thackeray’s comments come amid widespread public frustration over the expressway incident, which saw long queues, overnight stranding, and limited access to basic amenities for families, including women and children.