Road caves in outside BJP MP Dinesh Sharma’s house, 2 injured; Kanpur Expressway develops 7-ft crater

A section of Lucknow University Road outside the residence of BJP MP and former Uttar Pradesh deputy chief minister Dinesh Sharma caved in on Wednesday, leaving two people injured after the scooter they were riding fell into a hole several feet deep. The incident came amid a series of rain-related road cave-ins across Uttar Pradesh, including a seven-foot-deep crater on the Ganga Expressway in Unnao.

The two men were travelling from the Kaiserbagh side when their scooter fell into the collapsed section of the road. Both were taken to hospital, according to Abhay Prajapati.

“My brothers were coming from the Kaiserbagh side when their bike fell into the caved-in section. Both of them were admitted to a hospital,” Prajapati said.

Police and Lucknow Municipal Corporation officials cordoned off the affected stretch after the incident.

Preliminary assessments suggested that an underground pipeline leak or seepage from a drain may have caused the soil beneath the road to erode, leading to the cave-in.

The Lucknow incident followed a similar collapse in Kanpur’s Harsh Nagar area, where a covered drain gave way after heavy rain on Tuesday, leaving behind a crater nearly 10 feet deep and around 25 feet long. Only about two feet of the road remained intact.

The drain on the Brahm Nagar-Eidgah road had first begun sinking around a week earlier. The fresh collapse triggered panic among residents, following which the Jal-Kal department erected barricades around the crater.

Repair work by the Kanpur Municipal Corporation has been under way since last week.

“Due to the rain, the soil remained wet, and workers could not enter the pit during the day. Iron shuttering work was started in the evening,” said Ravi Pratap Singh, assistant engineer with the Jal-Kal department.

Ganga Expressway develops 7-feet-deep crater

The spate of incidents has also put the spotlight on the Ganga Expressway, one of Uttar Pradesh’s flagship infrastructure projects.

In Unnao, heavy rain caused a section of the expressway to cave in near the Basirathganj toll plaza on the Prayagraj-bound carriageway at around kilometre 423.6. The collapse left a hole roughly five feet wide and seven feet deep.

Authorities barricaded the damaged stretch around 300 metres before the site and diverted traffic to the other lane to prevent accidents.

The incident is particularly significant because the approximately 594-km Ganga Expressway has been promoted as a major symbol of Uttar Pradesh’s connectivity and development. The project reportedly cost around Rs 36,230 crore and was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Hardoi on April 29, 2026.

It was also the second reported incident involving the Ganga Expressway in Unnao this monsoon.

On August 17, soil along the edge of the expressway near Sonik village in the Dahi police station area was washed away, damaging around 200 metres of the road near kilometre 421.

The incidents have raised concerns over the ability of roads and their underlying drainage systems to withstand heavy monsoon rainfall.

While the precise causes of the individual cave-ins will require technical assessment, pipeline leaks, drain seepage and prolonged water saturation can weaken soil beneath roads and create cavities that may eventually cause the surface to collapse.

With heavy rain continuing in parts of Uttar Pradesh, the incidents have underscored the importance of regular inspection of roads, underground pipelines and drainage networks, particularly around major infrastructure projects.