‘Paris’ turns into ‘Venice’ after heavy rain

LAHORE: The ongoing pre-monsoon rain spell has once again hit the city mercilessly as 50mm rain inundated most of the city areas resulting in worst traffic jams as well as serious inconvenience for the citizens here Friday.

The rain started on Thursday morning and continued till Friday night during which it showed its strength forcing most of the moving vehicles to go on a halt. Rainwater inundated most of the major city roads and entered houses situated in low-lying areas.

Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) had established emergency camps at various city points and its officials, including Wasa Managing Director Syed Zahid Aziz remained on their toes to drain out the rainwater from the provincial capital but the drainage system choked at many points due to continuous rain.

The newly-constructed underground rainwater tunnel, which was still under construction was also opened to drain out the rainwater, said Wasa MD Zahid Aziz. He said this tunnel starts from Haji Camp and ends at Chauburji but at the moment it was completed till Lakshmi Chowk.

Met office, however, predicted that regular monsoon rains will start from July 07, 2018. However, on Friday, airport received 50mm rain, Gulberg 40mm, Lakshmi Chowk 33mm, Upper Mall 14mm, Chowk Nakhuda 12mm, Iqbal Town 13mm, Johar Town 21mm and etc. Wasa has already declared 22 city localities low-lying and emergency machinery, equipment and manpower was placed at emergency camps in these localities.

Wasa’s bad luck on Friday was that its newly-constructed disposal station at Lakshmi Chowk stopped working due to some technical reason. Sucker machines, dewatering sets and other equipment were called at the site and Wasa teams remained active in city at the site throughout the day. Following this technical mishap, about three feet stagnant rainwater accumulated at and around the site, which was drained out late at night.

Following the rain, more than 100 Lesco feeders tripped down resulting in hour-long power outages causing more inconvenience to the citizens. Other city localities where rainwater remained stagnant for some hours included Queens Road, Lawrence Road, Mall Road, Railway Station, Abbot Road, MCleod Road, Mayo Hospital, Anarkali, Zahoor Elahi Road, Ganga Ram, Samanabad Morr, Yateem Khana, Shah Jamal, Shadman, Ichhra, Model Town, Gaddafi Stadium, Main Market, Hussain Chowk, Kasuri Road, Gurumangat Road, Aik Moria Pull, Circular Road, Data Darbar, Ravi Road, Bilal Ganj, Misri Shah, Shadbagh, Garden Town, Faisal Town, Sandha, Rajgarh, Chauburji, Civil Secretariat, Urdu Bazaar, Link Road Shalimar, Township, Nabha Road, Excise Office, Customs House, GPO Chowk, Garhi Shahu, Vegetable Market Singhpura, GT Road, Chamra Mandi, Mughalpura, Sadar Bazaar, Dharampura, Green Town, Wahdat Colony, Garden Town, Chungi Amar Sadhu and etc.

Dr Mujtaba Paracha, Commissioner Lahore, also took notice of stagnant rainwater and visited Lakshmi Disposal Station to see the progress of work. Lahore DC also visited various city localities, including Lawrence Road, Lakshmi Chowk, The Mall and etc to supervise Wasa’s post-rain operations. Following the stagnant rainwater, traffic police blocked vehicles entry to various roads, including the portion right in front of Jinnah Hall, the symbol of City District Government Lahore, as over two to three feet rainwater was present there. Similarly, entry to The Mall from other connecting roads such as Hall Road, Beadon Road, Lawrence Road, GPO, Lahore High Court, Anarkali and etc was stopped as these roads were also full of rainwater.

Worst traffic jams were witnessed on Jail Road, Mozang Chungi, Chauburji, Gulshan-e-Ravi, Main Boulevard Gulberg, MM Alam Road, Multan Road, Canal Bank Road, Davis Road, Allama Iqbal Road, Habibullah Road, Samanabad Morr and inner streets of different localities, including Johar Town, Wahdat Colony, Ichhra, Islamia Park and etc. Traffic jams also stopped the movement of Rescue vehicles as well as ambulances and many were seen honking in traffic in various city areas. As usual most of the traffic signals went out of order after rain while there were no traffic wardens to control the traffic at major crossings.

Though some of the localities like Ittehad Colony, Alhamd Colony, Shabab Chowk, Pakki Thathi, Bistami Road and Samanabad recently had new drainage systems, but that too failed during Friday’s rain.

Meanwhile, Met officials said seasonal low lies over Northwest Balochistan and its adjoining areas while a westerly wave is present over northern parts of Afghanistan. Monsoon currents are continuously penetrating eastern parts of the country. They predicted that rain-thundershower with gusty winds is expected at isolated places in Lahore, Gujranwala, Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, Sahiwal, Bahawalpur, Malakand, Hazara, Mirpurkhas, Karachi, Hyderabad Divisions, Islamabad, Fata, Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan.

Rainfall was also recorded at other cities, including Dhali 80mm, Chhor 75mm, Chachro 40mm, Badin, Mithi 33mm, Diplo 24mm, Mirpurkhas 11mm, Kalohi 04mm, Tandojam 02mm, Karachi (Jinnah Terminal, Landhi 02mm), Kasur 94mm, Sialkot (A/P 63mm, Cantt 52mm), Gujranwala 57mm, Lahore (A/P 52mm, City 49mm, PU 23mm), Sahiwal 31mm, Okara 23mm, Mandi Bahauddin 12mm, Faisalabad 11mm, Gujrat 10mm, Bahawalnager, Jhelum 09mm, Mangla 05mm, Skardu 22mm, Astore 06mm, Kotli 18mm, Rawalakot 03mm and Parachinar 12mm. Friday’s maximum temperature was recorded at Sibbi where mercury reached 47°C while in Lahore, it was 26°C and minimum was 23.9°C.