Heavy rain exposes readiness

LAHORE:Heavy rain inundated the provincial metropolis virtually converting the City into Venice here Thursday while Met office predicted more rains during the next 24 hours.

The rain started late at night and continued until Thursday morning and forced all the civic bodies especially Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) and district administration to come out on the rain. Wasa Managing Director Syed Zahid Aziz said that so far Thursday’s rain was the highest in the year as 198mm rain was recorded at Lakshmi Chowk, 176mm at Tajpura, 168mm each at Pani Wala Talab and Farrukhabad, 163mm at Samanabad, 160mm at Gulshan-e-Ravi, 155mm Nishter Town, 143mm at Chowk Nakhuda, 141mm at Upper Mall, 131mm at Iqbal Town, 130mm at Punjab University, 118mm at Jail Road and 97mm each at airport and Gulberg. During the rain, most of the city roads turned into ponds bringing traffic to a halt. Rainwater also entered basements in several localities, graveyards, and commercial centres.

Amer, a resident of Shalimar, said that rainwater also entered the local graveyard and damaged several graves. He said despite repeated calls no civic bodies came to drain out rainwater from the graveyard.

Rainwater was drained out from majority of roads and 22 sore points until noon, said Wasa MD adding field teams were continuously working to drain out accumulated rainwater from the city. He said the underpass, which was a rainwater tunnel and was turned into underpass in the past regime, was filled with rainwater but active monitoring and working of Wasa cleared rainwater from the spot within two to three hours of rain. LDA’s under-construction Firdous Market underpass again submerged in two to three feet rainwater and private engineers raised serious questions over its strength and stability in future because such projects should

not be started in monsoon season, they said.

Residents of Old Anarkali, Jain Mandir, Bhatti Gate, Karim Park, Lakshmi Chowk, Nisbat Road, Gawalmandi Chowk, Railway Road, Brandreth Road, Muslim Town, Gulshan-e-Ravi, Temple Road, Old Mozang, Samanabad and Ichhra said that they were trapped in their homes for hours due to stagnant rainwater.

This was the first time that rainwater didn’t accumulate at Lawrence Road as Wasa has recently completed an underground storage tank with a huge capacity. Wasa MD said that Wasa was constructing similar underground water storage tanks at several sore points to tackle this problem.

Meanwhile, traders of different city markets, including Liberty, Neela Gumbad, Anarkali, Nisbet Road and Ichhra protested againstthe civic bodies for not draining out stagnant rainwater timely. Met officials said that strong monsoon currents are penetrating in upper/central areas while westerly wave is also present over upper parts of the country. They predicted that rain-wind-thundershowers are expected in Southern Punjab, Lower Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Northeast Balochistan and Sindh. While isolated rain is also expected in Islamabad, Northeast Punjab, Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan and Upper Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

Rainfall was also recorded at several cities, including Jhang 137, Faisalabad 136, Kasur 94, Chakwal 86, Gujranwala 70, Mandi Bahauddin 58, Gujrat 42, Noorpur Thal 36, Islamabad (Saidpur 34, Z/P, Golra 19, Bokra 14, AP 13), Rawalpindi (Chaklala 18, Shamshabad 14), Multan 32, Sialkot (Ap 26, City 22), Bhakkar 21, Jhelum 21, Sahiwal 20, Kot Addu 12, Bahawalpur, Murree 06, Layyah 03, DI Khan 45, Balakot 42, Peshawar (City 18, Ap 07), Parachinar 05, Dir, Chillas 04, Mirkhani 02, Kotli 24 and Garhi Dupatta 14.

Thursday’s maximum temperature was recorded at Dalbandin where mercury reached 43°C while in Lahore, it was 28°C and minimum was 23.3°C.

Meanwhile, Lahore Waste Management Company (LWMC) staff remained active in the city before and during the rain. In this regard, special cleaning measures were taken by the company in the city. On the directions of LWMC MD, workers had been deployed at all the 95 choking points of the city. The MD directed the officials to ensure their attendance at chocking points. He directed to ensure all the machinery and manpower in the field as per the monsoon plan and facilitate Wasa for removal of water from streets and main roads.

Furthermore, LWMC MD appealed to the citizens to cooperate with the company and instead of littering and throwing waste in streets, culverts, canals and open plots they should use waste bins. In case of waste-related complaint citizens can dial LWMC helpline 1139 or use mobile-based application Clean Lahore.

The rain also brought the officials of district administration as well as Provincial Secretary Housing Nadeem Mahboob in the field. Provincial secretary along with Wasa MD visited several sore points and passed instructions for early draining out of stagnant rainwater.