BHUBANESWAR: A 77 mm rain in a span of an hour and half left large parts of Bhubaneswar in knee-deep water, exposing the Capital City’s best kept secret - its urban planning.
Ending days of sultry conditions, the heavens opened up and within the next hour, major residential colonies and thoroughfares, including the NH, were overflowing with storm water. Not just the 27 chronic flooding spots of the city, large areas of the Capital reported acute water-logging.
Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation’s helpline numbers kept ringing after complaints over the urban deluge poured in. Homes were flooded while water-logged city left the traffic on its tracks.
While the stretch in front of Iskcon Temple saw waist-deep water accumulating on the road, the 120 Battalion-Kalinga Stadium Road near Shastri Nagar was overflowing. The route is a key road as it connects Biju Patnaik Airport to Patia.
Many residential areas including, Nayapalli, Jayadev Vihar, Bomikhal, Nigamananda Nagar, Gajapti Nagar, Gayati Nagar, Basudev Nagar, Baramunda and Sailashree Vihar were flooded. People’s misery doubled after TPCODL resorted to a two hour unscheduled power cut. Many were stranded on the roads as gushing storm water made commuting difficult.
Residents alleged trash racks installed on both sides of the culvert on drainage channel no - 10 near Esha Apartment turned to a main cause of flooding in parts of Nayapali Behera Sahi locality.
In case of drainage channel no 4, the erstwhile Water Resources Department’s poor planning compounded people’s miseries.
BMC’s inability to carry out drainage system restructuring in the last two years was on full display as the major natural drainage systems, with constructions encroachments in most parts, aided the deluge, leaving the corporation at its wit’s end. Poor de-siltation before the monsoon also added to the chaos.
Drainage division executive engineer Goutam Chandra Dash informed 10 BMC teams were deployed to clear water from the low-lying areas.
While BMC continues to struggle with water-logging problems in the city, the woes are yet to end as the India Meteorological Department (IMD) predicted more rains for the capital for next 48 hours.
The weather office issued a warning for heavy to very heavy rainfall in parts of Odisha in the next two days.
Heavy rainfall is expected in parts of Khurda, Puri, Cuttack, Kendrapara, Jagatsinghpur, Sambalpur and Deogarh districts, it said. It said a low pressure area is likely to form over north-west Bay of Bengal (BOB) and neighbourhood around July 23 and it will enhance rainfall activity in the State.
A car caught on the waterlogged road while a street vendor makes his way through waist.