Overnight downpour inundates vast areas of Dhaka city

Overnight heavy shower has inundated vast areas of the capital and its low-lying suburbs putting life in Dhaka in complete disarray. According to the Met Office, Dhaka experienced this season’s highest rainfall of 333 millimeters within a time span of just 10-hour till seven this morning. It is still drizzling with the Dhaka sky looking overcast following the heavy downpour triggered by a monsoon low.

School and office-goers got hard time negotiating knee to waist-deep water on the alleys and on also on many main city thoroughfares. Some of the city schools declared suspended their scheduled classes and examinations this morning. Normal life and business activities came to a total halt in many parts of the capital as its inadequate drainage system failed to cope with the heavy rush of rain waters and became clogged and water-logged at many places.

The downpour left things quite chaotic in the morning rush hours as commuters frantically looked for transports to get to offices, schools and business establishments. As the public transport system went out of gear, rickshaws, taxicabs and CNG-run three-wheelers braved the torrential rains and charged their passengers outrageously very high fares. Thousands of commuters were stuck in traffic jams in rush morning hours on the waterlogged streets.
The worst affected areas are Jatrabari, Motijheel, Mirpur, Kalyanpur, Shyamoli, Basabo, Goran, Azimpur, Dhanmondi, Minto Road, Press Club, Fakirapool, Moghbazar, Mowchak, Shantinagar, Kakrail, Uttara and the old parts of the city.

Activities at the Bangladesh Secretariat, the administrative hub of the country, could not be started till noon as many officials and employees failed attend their offices on time due to overnight heavy rainfall. Many of them entered the Secretariat at about 12:00pm while some others were still trying to reach their offices, sources said. Around 30 percent of the officials and employees remained absent due to the waterlogging at different parts of the capital.

Six lifts at different buildings inside the Secretariat went out of order after the Secretariat went under the knee-deep water. Officials of Fire Brigade, Power Development Board (PWD) and Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (Wasa) are trying to pump out the water.

The low developed over North Bay and adjoining Bangladesh coast Monday. The southwest monsoon was also strong over the North Bay and active over Bangladesh. Maritime ports of Chittagong, Cox’s Bazar and Mongla were earlier advised to hoist local cautionary signal number three. Met officials foresee more rains over the next couple of days by the influence of the monsoon low.

Meantime Prime minister Sheikh Hasina on Tuesday summoned top Dhaka WASA officials to her office over the water-logging in the city, a WASA official said. WASA chairman Golam Mostofa and acting managing director Mahbubur Rahman and several others went to meet with her at about 3pm, deputy chief public information officer at WASA Afsar Uz Zaman Khan said the reporters.