THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A huge mango tree fell on to the road opposite the Museum police station on Tuesday afternoon crushing a car and damaging power cables and a traffic signal.The tree came down around 1.30 pm on the road leading to Nandavanam opposite the Museum police station. No one was hurt in the incident. Normally a busy parking spot, there were few vehicles too at the time. The tree, weakened with age and decay, had fell on the only parked vehicle, an ambassador belonging to the Police Training College.The back of the car, which received the full impact of the fall, was crushed and the back wheels were twisted out of shape. The falling tree also damaged the solar panels of a traffic signal, and brought down power cables, hitting power supply in the area. A large section of the tree fell on to the footpath adjoining the road, crushing the iron railings.According to Fire and Rescue officials, the driver of the parked car had got out and fled after passersby raised an alarm. ‘’There was only a slight breeze. We heard a big cracking noise and saw the tree coming down. The car was parked on the roadside,’’ said Unni, who runs a shop next to the police station. ‘’There was a North Indian boy also walking along the road when the tree fell, but he dropped everything and ran,’’ he said.Although police and firemen reached the spot in no time, removing the tree proved a mammoth task. Armed with electric saws, firemen managed to chop off the smaller branches in an hour. But the thick trunk proved a different story altogether as it was wedged between the buckled iron railings of the footpath and the car. A small part of it was chopped off and removed with the help of a fire tender.The incident has once again brought to the fore the absence of adequate machinery with the Fire and Rescue Services to handle such situations. It may be remembered that Fire units had taken just one hour to remove a huge tree which fell at Statue some weeks ago. ‘’It will take a crane to remove the trunk. The Fire and Rescue Services does not have one. Arrangements are being made,’’ an official of the Fire and Rescue Services said. Officials hoped to remove the tree by Tuesday night itself. In the afternoon, Transport Minister V S Sivakumar visited the spot and reviewed the progress of work.
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