A total of 115 mm of rains in 36 hours since 6 am on Thursday till 6 pm on Friday again contributed to flooding of some city streets, whose clogged drains were unable to flush out the pre-monsoon downpour. There was a rerun of the worst scenario on the Dhaka-Mymensingh highway near Gazipur, which remained under knee-deep water as the extra downpour contributed further to the water logging of the ill-designed highway sans proper drainage system.
The knee-deep water in Shantinagar area caused troubles to the BCS preliminary examinees, sitting for their exams at the nearby Habibullah Bahar College. The examinees found it difficult to negotiate the flooded streets to the examination halls, jumping into it as the college compound was waterlogged under knee-deep water.
The clogged highway to the city from the north, used by transports from the southwest, also contributed to a sudden hike in supplies to the city kitchen markets, where vegetables and other perishables shot up by at least Taka three to four adding up further to the budget of weekend shoppers in the capital’s middle class bazaars with the retailers putting up lame excuses of rains making it difficult for transportation of all perishables.
As the city remained under siege by dark clouds, bursting
occasionally overnight and in the early hours of Friday, the flooded streets in most of its neighbourhood repeated Thursday’s scenario.
Vehicles like cars and buses found it difficult to negotiate the water congestion due to sudden outburst of the clouds.
The clouds spilling out of the northern Bay of Bengal, are forcing navigation dangerous with local cautionary signal number three in force at the sea ports of Chittagong, Mongla and Cox’s Bazaar since Thursday.
The fishing boats have been asked to return to the safe places, hugging close to the coast until the calm returns to the choppy bay.
The chaos in the capital on a weekend exposed its inherent weakness, inadequate storm sewers, unable to cope with sudden downpours despite some patchy clean up a little earlier and old and rusty pumps working overnight to flush out the extra rainfall, reinforcing Thursday’s fall.
The menace of polythene shopping bags and all kinds of plastic products dumped into the wayside drains in Shantinagar, Kamalapur, Dhanmodi, Banani, Mirpur and Mohammadpur, added further to the woes of the city dwellers trying to make the most on a cool weekend as the rains had washed away the past few days’ hot and humid weather, bringing the maximum temperature to 29 Degrees Celsius and the minimum down to 23.9 Celsius. However, meteorologists said, they expect improvement in weather with a slowdown in rainfall from Saturday.
But, the prospect in the days ahead is not that bright as the south western Monsoon, heralding the beginning of the rainy season, has advanced further in the Bay of Bengal, anchoring near the Akiab coast of Myanmar, very near to the country’s coastline. It was steadily rolling towards Teknaf coast; from there, it is likely to start spreading its wide wings all over the country by the first week of June. UNB adds: Rain or thundershowers accompanied by temporary gusty or squally wind is likely to occur at many places over Dhaka, Barisal, Chittagong, and Sylhet divisions and at a few places over Rajshahi, Rangpur and Khulna divisions in 24 hours till 6 pm tomorrow (Saturday).
Moderately heavy to very heavy falls are also likely at places over Dhaka, Barisal, Chittagong and Sylhet divisions, Met Office said. Day and night temperature may remain nearly unchanged over the country The sun sets in the capital tomorrow at 6:39pm and rises on Sunday at 5:12am. Country’s highest temperature 35.2 degree Celsius was recorded today at Jessore and lowest 21.0 degrees at Cox’s Bazar.
-With The Independent input
