Monsoon floods Ctg again

Residents of the port city once again -- fifth time over the past three months -- found themselves waterlogged following nearly 12 hours of incessant monsoon rain.

Their last similar ordeal was only 20 days back when most parts of the city were inundated due to seasonal heavy showers.   

Syeda Mimi Parvin at the city's met office said they recorded 145 millimetres of rain in a span of 24 hours till 3:00pm yesterday. 

After the rain stopped in the afternoon, the low-lying areas went under knee to waist-deep water. 

The photo of inundated city roads were taken in Probortak area. Photo: Anurup Kanti Das

The flooding did not only cause immense sufferings to the city dwellers, but it created a life threatening situation as the open drains, manholes or potholes in the streets were no longer visible to the road users. 

An elderly retired government official, Shilbroto Barua, 60, died early yesterday after he fell in an open drain, while boarding a bus in the city's Dampara area. The drain had turned invisible due to the flooding.

Shilbroto had come to the city from Mirzapur of Hathazari upazila to attend a wedding ceremony at a community centre in the area, said Pranab Chowdhury, officer-in-charge of Chawk Bazar Police Station.

He was cast away by strong current and his body was found later in the morning in Chaktai canal near Miah Khan Nagar area, he added. 

The areas that yesterday's rain hit the hardest include Chawk Bazar, KB Aman Ali Road, DC Road, Muradpur, Bahaddarhat, Badurtola, Kapasgola, Sholoshahar Gate 2, Probortak intersection, Agrabad, Halishahar, Shulak Bahar, Bibirhaat, Chandgaon, Dewan Bazar, Chaktai, Khatunganj, Oxygen, Katalganj and Panchlaish residential area.

While wading through almost waist-deep filthy water overflowing from the Chaktai canal near Chawk Bazar kitchen market, office-goer Sheikh Mohammad Jasim Uddin vented his frustration by saying, “I am going to [my] office, but look at me... Dredging was not done properly in the canal and that's why it can't hold this much water.”

“The Chittagong City Corporation [CCC] officials say they were doing a lot of things to address the waterlogging. You can see with your very eyes how much they have done... We ran out of our patience”

Trisha Bhattacharjee, a resident of DC Road at West Bakalia, got out of the house braving knee-deep water in the area since she needed to go to a coaching centre.

“I waited for more than half-an-hour for a rickshaw, but in vain,” said a fully drenched Trisha. “As I was getting late, I had to start walking through this filthy water overflowing from drains.”

The photo of inundated city roads were taken in Agrabad area. Photo: Anurup Kanti Das

“This is the third time I am facing this problem over the past couple of months... Why isn't this problem being addressed? It seems that the city has no guardian!”

When contacted, a CCC official, Assistant Engineer Sudip Basak, said since January this year, the CCC has excavated around 78,650 tonnes (15730 trips) of soil from the Chaktai canal to improve the drainage capacity of Chittagong city.

“We are trying our best... but the CCC alone can't address the situation... people [also] should cooperate [us] by keeping the drains and canals free of obstructions,” he said.