BANGLADESH NEWS
Nearly one-third of the port city went under water yesterday due to overnight heavy downpour, which continued until noon.
Houses, schools and colleges, shops and business premises went under three to four feet of water in the low-lying areas of the city, causing sufferings to lakhs of its residents.
School-going children and people working at offices and factories, and others, mainly women, going out to buy daily necessities at the kitchen markets had to move mostly on foot through the thick and filthy water because of very little transport on the streets.
Traffic movement slightly improved in the afternoon when the rain stopped. About twenty lakh people in these areas have been affected directly.
Chittagong met office recorded 193.4 millimetres of rain in the 24 hours until 3:00pm yesterday.
The makeshift shops of Chawk Bazar kitchen market were washed away by the water. Meanwhile, the number of consumers was very small.
Activities at Chittagong Port were also hampered due to the incessant rain, said sources at the port.
In some areas, locals said, there was waist-high water where movement of all types of engine-run vehicles came to a standstill since it took time for the water to be removed through drains and storm sewerage lines.
Only a few rickshaws were plying on the roads. Some people managed to use them but most people had to walk to their destinations.
Locals said the city's Chawk Bazar, Bakalia, Kapashgola, Bahaddarhat, CDA Avenue area, Halishahar, Badurtala, Patenga, Muradpur, Sholashahar, Mohammadpur, Agrabad, Chandgaon and Nasirabad area went under waist-deep water.
Chittagong City Corporation authorities, responsible for ensuring civic facilities for city dwellers, admitted its inability to solve the problem immediately.
Asked, Bijoy Kumar Chowdhury, a councillor of the CCC who is also chairman of the CCC standing committee on waterlogging, said it was very difficult to save the whole city from being submerged.
He blamed the blocking of drains by soil as well as unplanned construction in the city for the clogging of water followed by rain. “We have done a lot of work on behalf of the CCC to address this problem,” he claimed.
Chowdhury, however, said that the situation might improve if the authorities could complete digging a canal from Bahaddarhat to the Karnaphuli river.
A proposal in this regard was under consideration of the LGRD ministry, he added.
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