It took Sajjad Talukdar six hours – from 11am to 5pm – by bus to reach Azimpur from Uttara, a journey that does not usually take more than two hours even on a busy working day given Dhaka’s heavy traffic.
When he reached Mohakhali around 2pm, which was about halfway through the journey, the idea of getting off the bus and walking came across his mind. But he decided against it when he saw the road ahead submerged in several feet of water. Even the pavements were under water.
IT professional Shakib Arifin started from in front of the British Council on Dhaka University campus at 1pm and reached his home in Mirpur area at 7pm yesterday. Usually, this journey should not take more than an hour.
Shakib’s journey began on a CNG autorickshaw but had to change vehicles four times – all of them rickshaws thereafter to cover the 10km distance in six hours.
The Met office recorded 61 millimetres of rain in Dhaka city yesterday. It was not an all-day affair – it started as a drizzle before 12 noon, came down incessantly as heavy downpour over the next hour.
In that one hour, the Met office recorded 42mm rainfall, which they said was not entirely unusual for Dhaka.
But thanks to the crumbling drainage system in the country’s capital, almost entire city got inundated, some places under several feet of stagnant rainwater.
The obvious consequence was a severe traffic gridlock that brought the city to a standstill, keeping people stuck until very late in the evening.
Imtiaz Ahmed, deputy commissioner (traffic) of Dhaka West, said most of the areas of the city went under stagnant water which caused the severe traffic congestion that ate up the working hours.
Things were particularly excruciating for people living or travelling on the roads in Dhanmondi, Farmgate, Green Road, Karwan Bazar, Kalabagan, Panthapath, Bijoy Sarani, New Market, Shantinagar, Rampura, Mirpur, Gulshan and Badda.
Many people were already on the road when the downpour turned heavy and they were still on the road many hours after rain stopped. They watched helplessly how the roads went under water in less than an hour and they were still stuck in the middle of nowhere.
Many vehicles broke down in the middle of roads as water caught the engines, making it difficult for the other vehicles to manoeuver their way.
Around 2:30pm, businessman Mahbub Hossain was seen pushing his car through the water on Dhanmondi Road 16.
“I remained static on the road for over an hour. Then my car broke down as water got into the engine. Now, I am pushing the car to a nearby service centre. I do not know if I would ever be able to reach there,” he said while pushing his car.
For years, Dhaka did not have a mayor; now there are two – Annisul Huq for Dhaka North City Corporation and Sayeed Khokhon for south. But none of them received calls from the Dhaka Tribune yesterday; they could not be reached in any other way either.
The two had, however, heavily campaigned their plans on resolving Dhaka’s water stagnation problem while seeking votes in the mayoral election in April this year.
Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (Wasa) and the city corporations are jointly responsible for managing the city’s waste and drainage systems.
When contacted, Wasa Managing Director Taqsem A Khan refrained from talking on the issue. “I will not make any comment on that,” he said.
Shah Alam, director of Bangladesh Meteorological Department, told the Dhaka Tribune that 42mm rainfall in an hour can be considered heavy, but this can happen at this time of year.
“Water stagnation that crippled the city was the result of the drainage system failure. The system failed to dispatch the heavy load of rainwater within a short time,” he said.
However, it is also true that this year, high monsoonal behaviour is persisting for an extended period compared to normal, he said, adding that rainfall has been 40% higher than average.
The Met office recorded a total of 1,810mm of rainfall all over the country yesterday.
Our Chittagong bureau has reported an almost similar picture in the port city as well. Until 3pm yesterday, the Chittagong Met office recorded 149.1mm of rainfall.
As a result of the heavy downpour, the low-lying areas in and around the port city went under knee- to waist-high water causing severe troubles for the residents in the form of transport crisis and traffic gridlock.
The dilapidated roads, which has been a longstanding problem for the port city dwellers, only added to the misery.