08/07/2026
Barely weeks after it was opened to traffic, the much-awaited Mumbai-Pune Expressway 'missing link' section has run into its first major challenge as heavy monsoon rains triggered a landslide near one of its tunnels and exposed pavement damage, raising questions about the engineering resilience of India's newest mountain expressway.
The Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) was forced to temporarily divert traffic after rocks, mud and debris slid onto the Mumbai-bound carriageway near the exit of Tunnel 2, following intense rainfall across the Western Ghats.
Reports also emerged of pothole-like surface defects on parts of the newly inaugurated road, prompting the agency to order immediate repairs and inspect the affected sections.
While officials maintain the expressway remains structurally safe, the first monsoon has highlighted the immense engineering challenges involved in building a high-speed highway through one of India's most difficult mountain terrains.
WHAT IS THE MUMBAI-PUNE EXPRESSWAY MISSING LINK?
The Rs 6,695-crore Missing Link was conceived to bypass the accident-prone Khandala Ghat section of the Mumbai-Pune Expressway.
The project features an 8.9-kilometre twin tunnel, one of the longest road tunnels in India, another 1.68-km tunnel, a cable-stayed bridge and multiple viaducts designed to cut travel time by nearly 30 minutes.
However, the alignment passes through the Sahyadri (Western Ghats), a region that receives between 3,000 and 6,000 millimetres of rainfall annually and is well known for landslides during the southwest monsoon.
WHY IS THE MISSING LINK SECTION SO VULNERABLE?
Unlike the older expressway, which winds around the hills, the Missing Link cuts directly through steep mountain slopes.
The Missing Link passes through the layered Deccan Trap basalt formations of the Western Ghats, where fractured rock, weathered zones, volcanic breccia, which is rock made up of broken, angular fragments of volcanic rock, and weak red bole clay layers create natural zones of instability.
