People and rickshaws ploughing through knee-deep water on Nazimuddin road in Old Dhaka to go to their destinations after yesterday’s rainfall submerged the area.
Just a few hours of torrential rain pushed much of the capital to ankle to waist-deep water, causing immense sufferings to the city dwellers yesterday.
Two pedestrians died of electrocution when they stepped on a snapped electric cable in the waterlogged street at Bangsal in the old town.
Inadequate drainage system and its poor management, filling up of canals and conversion of canals into box culverts are the main reasons for waterlogging, experts and officials have said.
“The existing drainage system can carry rainwater up to 15 millimeters per hour if the sewerage system is not clogged with waste. But there will be waterlogging if it rains more than that,” said an official of Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (Wasa).
The Met office said it rained 70mm in six hours yesterday morning and on Wednesday night, which is about 12mm per hour.
Beginning early Thursday, the downpour continued for several hours and soon submerged most of the city streets and alleyways.
The manholes or potholes added to the sufferings as vehicles and pedestrians stumbled on them or fell over.
People living in shanties are the worst sufferers.
Minara Begum of Gendaria could not cook till yesterday afternoon as her house had gone under waist-deep water. Her gas stoves in the kitchen were submerged.
“We still do not know whether we can cook at night,” her son, Rhidoy, told The Daily Star in the evening.
The woes of Sushanta Roy, who lives in a multi-storey building at Paribagh, are greater.
The building’s water reservoir was connected with the sewage line and the water became all stinky.
“The residents of our building drink supply water after boiling it. But now it is so stinky,” said Sushanta.
Mamun Akram of Shahjahanpur said all the lanes and bi-lanes in his locality had been in dilapidated conditions for the last few months and yesterday’s rain took the entire area under water.
A child sleeps beside its mother in a shanty made up of long polythene sheets on a footpath in the capital’s Motijheel yesterday amid intermittent rain that caused water stagnation on the road by. Photo: Palash Khan
Some of the worst affected areas are Gendaria, Shahjahanpur, Green Road, Dhanmondi 27, Asad Gate, Shyamoli, Iqbal Road, Indira Road, Rajabazar, Shyampur, Shahjahanpur, Fakirapool, Old Dhaka, Shantinagar, Malibagh, Nayapaltan and Motijheel.
Hundreds of passengers suffered long tailbacks on the Dhaka-Mymensingh, Dhaka-Narsingdi and Dhaka-Narayanganj roads.
According to the Met office, heavy to very heavy rainfall is likely to occur at places over Dhaka, Barisal, Chittagong, Sylhet and Rajshahi divisions today.
EXPERTS’ OPINION
Jahangir Alam, chief engineer of DSCC, said water could not pass through the surface drains as many of Dhaka’s canals and drains are blocked by waste.
He added that the once 60-feet Genda canal that used to carry the waters of Kalyanpur, Shantinagar and Malibagh has now been turned into a 12-feet culvert and that, too, is largely blocked by waste.
Taqsem A Khan, managing director of Wasa, said Dhaka city now had 26 canals, down from 65 in the 1970s.
According to Iqbal Habib, joint secretary of Bangladesh Paribesh Andolon, most of the existing canals were either filled up or turned into box culverts over the years, leading to the waterlogging.
He blamed the authorities concerned for not properly maintaining the drainage system.
A Wasa official said Dhaka city now had about 300km of storm water drainage lines, only half the city of around 13.5 million people requires.
Apart from the drainage lines, Wasa maintains some 10.50km box culverts.
TWO ELECTROCUTED
Two people were electrocuted to death at Malitola in Bangshal yesterday morning.
The dead are Sagor Ahmed, 23, a shop employee, and Awlad Hossain, 25, a shop owner, at Bangabazar.
They stepped in the rainwater, where there was a live wire, at around 9:30am, said Abdul Kuddus Fakir, officer-in-charge of Bangshal Police Station.
Source: The Daily Star
