Heavy downpour or drizzling started from Tuesday across the country is likely to continue in next couple of days, say Met officials.
The unusual rain appeared due to active monsoon over the country and the situation may unchanged till Friday.
However, the overall situation caused by the incessant shower is not severe like Tuesday except some gridlocks in different areas of the capital.
The Met office Tuesday recorded 61mm rain in the capital alone. It started as drizzle before 12 noon and finally came down incessantly as heavy downpour over the next hour that saw 42mm rainfall in a short period.
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.
Read More: An hour of heavy rain paralyses Dhaka
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.
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 Tuesday; 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 Tuesday.
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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.