Heavy monsoon rains on Saturday morning caused severe water logging and chaotic traffic mess in the capital Dhaka, paralyzing normal life of the city dwellers.
Water logging in the city’s key thoroughfares due to the monsoon rain caused severe gridlock in the main thoroughfares almost the whole day. Reports of monsoon rains and water logging were also reported from different other parts of the country.
People going out for work had to face the agonies of wading through toe to knee-deep water as torrential rains, that continued till noon, inundated most of the main roads, lanes and by-lanes in many areas of the capital.
Beginning around 6:00am, the rain disrupted the movement of office-goers and the Eid shoppers. The city dwellers found moving around very difficult as drizzles turning into heavy torrent sent many city areas under water.Dhaka met office measured 69 mm of rainfall from 6:00am to 3:00pm on Saturday. The rain will continue throughout the night and might be continue Sunday morning, the met office said, adding that the incessant rain is a natural monsoon, which has been influenced by a low formed in the northwestern part of the Bay of Bengal.
Mirpur, Mouchak, Green Road, Baridhara, Kakrail, New Market, Sukrabad, parts of Banani and Gulshan were inundated under toe to knee-deep water. The city thoroughfares were inundated as poor drainage system in the capital failed to flush out the rainwater that also contributed to huge traffic jams for hours together on different routes further aggravating the public plight. A number of commuters have voiced their strong disappointment saying that they had to go through such sufferings for a long time even after a brief rainfall as the city’s drainage system has been clogged with polythene shopping bags and non-dissolvable materials. They said the government should take a well-thought-out plan to improve the drainage system and city roads to rid them of the sufferings during monsoon. Environmentalists and city planners blamed different service providing agencies for the present precarious state of the city roads due to lack of coordination among them over implementation of projects. Besides, they also take in hands development projects, particularly during monsoon.
They also stressed the need for people’s consciousness so that polythene and shopping bags are not thrown in a scattered way. Drains are mainly choked following garbage strewn. Rain water easily submerges vest areas as drains remain choked.
On July 2, the met office in a forecast asked the maritime ports of Chittagong, Cox’s Bazar and Mongla to hoist local cautionary signal number three due to the depression in the Bay. Talking to The New Nation yesterday, an employee of a private office at Motijheel said, it took him more than three hours to reach his office from Mirpur due to severe traffic jam caused by rain. The city’s traffic turns into a mess even after a brief rain. “How long this situation will continue? Why cannot our city authorities take effective measures to improve the situation?” he wonders. Narrating his sufferings on submerged roads, Azizur Rahaman, a student, said the government alongside making flyovers should also take steps to improve the city drainage system and roads to save the city from water logging.
Another commuter, Ariful Islam, complained that the sufferings of the passengers went beyond imagination as the busy Kalshi Road in Mirpur has been kept half done for long. During rain the road becomes unusable as well as unsafe. Besides, the overflow of a sewerage drain of the road remains unattended though thousands of vehicles pass through the road round-the-clock. It is not understandable how the city corporation authorities are indifferent to the woes of the commuters. Thousands of commuters were stuck in traffic jams for hours on the waterlogged streets. They had to wade through knee-deep water to reach their destinations amid huge water logging.
The CNG-run auto-rickshaws, taxis and rickshaws that were on the roads braving the rains demanded outrageously high fares after the public transport system went out of gear. To make the situation worse, a large number of vehicles went out of service in the rainwater. Poor people, particularly those living in slums and low laying areas, had been the worst sufferers as the rainwater swamped their shanties.
