Daily Times

LAHORE: Torrential rain on Saturday badly affected life in the city as rainwater accumulated on roads, parks and low-lying areas, exposing the claims of WASA, CDGL and Punjab government regarding arrangements made for monsoon.

It rained heavily on Saturday morning, making the weather pleasant, but streets, commercial markets and even cattle markets were left flooded. The city’s drainage system failed to flush out the water from all major arteries, markets and residential areas. Intermittent rain also disturbed flight schedule and transport system across the city. Meanwhile, citizens saw it an opportunity to get out of their houses with families to visit public parks and eateries. Sales of samosas, pakoras, dahi bhalay saw a rise.

Rain caused massive traffic jams across the city, especially at school closing time. Many motorists got stuck in the rainwater for several hours.

According to LWMC’s emergency response plan for monsoon, more than 1,200 workers have been deputed in 144 low-lying areas of the city to help drain rainwater by removing solid waste and silt from drains and to efficiently address emergency situation during heavy spells of rain. Offices of the zonal officers present in nine zones across the city were declared emergency centers to respond as quickly as possible in the event of an emergency or massive

However, LWMC and WASA were unsuccessful in removing rainwater. Water accumulated on all major arteries and areas, including Ferozepur Road, Samnabad, Sultan Ahmed Road, Gulberg, Wahdat Colony, Mazang Chungi, DHA, Lakshmi Chowk, Pani Wala Talab, Icchra, Johar Town, Samnabad, Frakh Abad, Canal Road, Misri Shah, Gaddafi Stadium, Wahdat Colony, Rehman Pura, Township, Multan Road, outside Haji Camp and other surrounding areas.

According to Met Office, rain, thundershowers with isolated heavy rain is expected at a number of places in Punjab, Islamabad, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh and Kashmir, and at scattered places in FATA, Gilgit-Baltistan and Balochistan in the next 24 hours. Heavy downpour may trigger flash flooding and landslides in some areas of Punjab, Balochistan, KP, GB and Kashmir.

The city received 120mm rain at Airport, 59mm in the city, 56mm in Gulberg and Jail Road, 28mm in Allama Iqbal Town, 82mm in Tajpura and 40mm in Johar Town, Misri Shah and Shahi Qilla. According to WASA and LWMC, their sanitary workers remained busy in the field trying to drain the rainwater from the city

Lahore Development Authority Director General Nabeel Javed personally supervised the post-rain operation of WASA for the disposal of rainwater from various localities of the city on Saturday. He visited these areas to monitor the arrangements made by WASA and directed the staff concerned to ensure optimum utilisation of the available machinery for quick drainage of rainwater. The DG directed close coordination with Met Office for getting rainfall forecast and beginning of the drainage operation simultaneously with the start of rain.

Briefing the DG about the measures taken by WASA for quick disposal of rainwater from the city, WASA Managing Director Ch Naseer Ahmad said all the 108 disposal and lift stations were functioning to their full capacity besides 40 sucker lorries and 59 de-watering sets installed at sensitive points in the city. He said post-rain operation was being carried out smoothly. A central monitoring cell has also been established in the head office of WASA for close coordination with field formation and 25 complaint centres have been set up in the city which were working round the clock.