Islamabad—Heavy monsoon rain in the Federal capital on Monday morning exposed the Capital Development Authority’s (CDA) poor sanitation system as gushing rainwater entered several important buildings including Parliament House, Poly Clinic Hospital and Marriott Hotel.
The heavy rainfall started at 1130 hours. It continued for an hour inundating low lying areas forcing people to flee their houses for safety in view of absence of proper drainage system.
The federal capital received 85 mm of rain and according to Met Office more monsoon rains with isolated heavy downpour are expected during next 24 hours. According to reports, the rain-water entered the galleries of the Parliament House while the water leakages were also reported from roofs of some committee rooms.
The rain-water also found its way to Emergency ward of Poly Clinic Hospital, hampering the rescue operation and treatment.
Heavy rain besides becoming the cause of traffic jams forced the vehicles to come to a complete halt on various highways for a long time. A few road mishaps were also reported from different areas. The reason for this was attributed to the fact that it had become difficult to drive on wet roads.
The casual and care-free habit of some people had also become a source of worry for other citizens. This was specially witnessed in the low-lying areas. The residents of these areas without taking any caution dump grarbage into streams that may be flowing close to their homes. Now when heavy rain fell, the garbage that was dumped in the past forced the water to overflow the banks.
The rain-water, thereafter entered some houses in the company of the garbage that had earlier been thrown away.
However, the people living on the bank of Nullah in G-7 cut down the ramps of small pedestrian bridge to clear the flow of rainwater which was blocked due to garbage in the Nullah, while rainwater also made its way into the offices located near the Nullah causing problems for the employees.
When contacted, Director, Directorate of Sanitation CDA, Captain Faiz Mohammad refused to accept the responsibility for ensuring proper sanitation in the capital city and said Directorate of Emergency and Disaster Management should do this work.
He told APP that the construction of roads and other infrastructure has increased and the drainage joints were small which hampered easy flow of rainwater.In Lahore, the rainfall was recorded 120 mm during last 24 hours, but the de-watering pumps could not be put to work due to long hours of loadshedding.
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