Residents of Chittagong city have been suffering greatly for the past few days as continuous monsoon rain had water-locked most streets in the city due to its poor drainage system.
During a visit to the port city's low lying areas, this Dhaka Tribune correspondent found that most of its streets were submerged in knee-deep water following a night-long rainfall.
The monsoon showers in the port city began from Wednesday night turned into heavy rainfall by yesterday afternoon.
Waterlogging was witnessed in several areas, specially Paschim Madarbari, Bakalia, Chawkbazar, Agrabad, Halishahar, Kapasgola, Chandgaon, Shulakbahar, Enayet Bazar, Boropol, Muradpur, Sholoshahar, Bahaddarhat and Probartak intersection.
The Chittagong Divisional Met Office said 151.20 millimetres of rainfall recorded in last 24 hours till yesterday 3:00pm. It also forecasts rainfall to continue for next few days due to the monsoon.
Motor vehicles were hardly seen on these areas, while rickshaws were seen plying on the city roads. Commuters, greatly outnumbering the rickshaws, had to wade through filthy water from overflowing sewerage lines to reach their destination.
Although businesses, educational institutions and other organisations remained closed due to a public holiday, most people in the city faced immense hardship to carry out other activities of their daily lives.
At the same time, continuous waterlogging also created giant potholes on most of the city roads making the thoroughfares even more risky for both pedestrians and vehicles.
“This [waterlogging] has become a headache for the residents of this city as the rain water floods shops, warehouses and other business establishments every year during the monsoon,” said Mohiuddin Mohi, a businessman from the city’s Khatungonj area, told Dhaka Tribune
He also blamed poor drainage system for the waterlogging in the city.
Sultana Yasmin, a resident of CDA at Agrabad, claimed regular flooding had spread many skin-related and waterborne diseases in her area.
When asked, Chittagong City Corporation (CCC) Executive Engineer Rafiqul Islam said the canals in different areas of the city had been overflowing during monsoon season and resulted in clogging rainwater and flooding some of the areas in the city.
“If the drainage master plan of 1995 of Chittagong Development Authority was fully implemented, the water logging problem would have been solved permanently,” said CCC Mayor M Manjur Alam.
Acknowledging the present waterlogging situation of the city, he claimed that the situation this year had much better than previous years and the CCC was now working to solve the problem permanently.
“The CCC is also working to repair the affected city roads, but rain is disrupting the construction works,” he also added.
Fearing a possibility of a landslide in hilly areas of the city, the district administration has begun announcing warnings over loud speaker urging hillside dweller to relocate to safe areas like nearby school buildings and cyclone centres.