Heavy rain inundated many parts of the capital on Monday causing severe water stagnation which disrupted traffic movements and hampered city life.

Many roads and businesses went under polluted water due to the rain which started on Sunday night and intensified in the morning, causing acute sufferings to office goers and other commuters.

The commuters found it difficult to reach workplaces on time as it started pouring around the time they were to leave for work.

Bangladesh Meteorological Department said that they recorded 65 millimetres  of rain in six hours starting from 6:00am.

Meteorologist Md Omar Faruq, quoting forecast, said that same volume of rain might continue till July 23 in Dhaka.

He said that this was the highest rainfall recorded in July this year while the highest 81mm rainfall was recorded in July 12 last year, which also had created acute waterlogging.

Most parts of Mirpur and Dhanmondi and many roads in Motijheel, Malibagh, Moghbazar, Mohammadpur, Karwan Bazar, Rajarbag, Banglamotor, Tejgaon, Hazaribagh and Old Dhaka went under knee-deep or even deeper water for hours.

Rainwater overran Karwanbazar kitchen market and other businesses and residence at Rajarbag, Dhanmondai, Mirpur and Moghbazar, damaging goods and increasing people’s sufferings.

Dhanmondi 27 intersection, Panthapath, Manik Miah Avenue and Mirpur Road went under water where private cars and busses were seen wading slowly through water, leading to long tailbacks during office time around 9:00am, witnesses said.

City women and aged persons suffer most trying to get buses or when forced to walk on the roads flooded with sewerage water.
Torrential rainfalls submerge roads and alleys, playgrounds and markets, offices and houses of the capital on Monday. Clockwise from top left, a driver struggles to pull his rickshaw through clogged water at Dhanmondi, vehicles ply along an inundated road at Dhanmondi, rickshaws make their way through knee-high water, and an auto-rickshaw tumbles down on a submerged road at Rajarbagh in Dhaka on Monday. — Sony Ramany and Sourav Lasker

Sanjida Akter, a bank employee at Banglamotor said that she went out of her house at Mohammadpur at 7:30am but could not cross Mirpur Road at Asad Gate till 9:00am due to acute traffic jam created for waterlogging on the busy Mirpur Road’s Dhanmondi 27.

Dhaka WASA director AKM Shahid Uddin said that the water level of the rivers surrounding the capital was higher due to the current flood situation, so rainwater was not draining out of the streets easily.

‘Dhaka WASA is pumping out 55,000 cubic metres of water per second from its four pumping stations — Kamalapur, Kollayanpur, Rampura and Dholaipar —to remove rainwater,’ he said.

Jahangirnagar University urban planning professor and president of the Bangladesh Institute of Planners Akter Mahmud said that the situation deteriorated as the government agencies failed to implement the plan of development and maintain drainage system.

He said that waterlogging intensified as structures were built on low-land of the city violating plan while drainage master plan is only found just on paper.

Akter feared that waterlogging might become more severe in the upcoming days if the situation did not improve.

During visits a number of roads were found under construction and drainage catch pits also were found blocked by waste causing prolonged water stagnation.