Heavy rain batters City; roads flooded

LAHORE:Heavy rain on Friday turned all major roads, green belts and open places into ponds while civic authorities remained on toes to drain out the rainwater.

The rain started early in the morning and continued till noon. According to the data released by Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa), the highest rain 164mm was recorded at Laxmi Chowk, 134 mm at Tajpura, 133mm at Farkhabad, 126mm at Chowk Nakhuda, 124mm at Nishtar Town, 116 mm at Pani Wala Talab, 110mm at Mughalpura, 89mm at Upper Mall, 63mm at Gulshan-e-Ravi, 55 mm at Jail Road, 54mm at Samanabad, 50mm each at Johar Town and Iqbal Town, 51mm at the airport and 34 mm at Gulberg.

A large number of motorcyclists took shelter under the underpasses in the City, resulting in traffic jams. Rainwater also accumulated in many low-lying localities and caused inconvenience to the citizens. Following the heavy rain, over 200 feeders of Lahore Electric Supply Company also tripped, as a result, electricity supply to a number of city localities was suspended. The rain also caused traffic wardens to disappear from their duty places, which resulted in massive traffic jams on many roads as traffic signals had also gone out of order due to rain.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Usman Buzdar directed Wasa Managing Director Syed Zahid Aziz, Lahore commissioner, DC Lahore and other senior officers to remain in field and supervise the operation of draining out stagnant rainwater. The Wasa MD visited all the pumping stations of the agency to ensure clearance of rainwater in a timely manner. He also checked the de-watering sets and directed the field teams to clear stagnant rainwater from low-lying localities as soon as possible.

The DC along with Wasa MD also visited Laxmi Chowk and talked to the media. The Wasa MD told reporters that Wasa had already constructed an underground rainwater storage tank on Lawrence Road due to which traffic on Lawrence Road, once a sore point, was smooth.

Met Office said that strong monsoon currents were penetrating the upper and lower parts of the country while a westerly wave was also affecting the upper/western parts of the country. Friday’s highest temperature was recorded at Chhor and Sibbi where the mercury reached 40°C while in Lahore it was 33.2°C and lowest was 22.8°C.