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City reels under rainwater

Traffic, business screech to a halt; thousands of phones go dead

Staff Correspondent
Most parts of Motijheel, Demra, Sabujbagh, Bijoynagar, Azimpur, Jigatala, Mirpur-10 Circle to Sheorapara, Khilgaon, Malibagh, Mouchak, Shantinagar, Kakrail, Moghbazar, Shahbagh, New Market, Dhanmondi, Mohammadpur, Secretariat and Farmgate reeled under ankle-to-knee-deep water for
FROM PAGE 1 hours on end.
"I got on a Farmgate-bound bus from Jatrabari at 7:30 in the morning and reached Karwan Bazar well beyond 11:00am, as the bus got stuck in knee-deep water at Motijheel," said Reaz Hossain, an office-goer.
"It took me more than three hours to reach the judge's court at Sadarghat from Mirpur 10, as the road from Mirpur to Sheorapara went under water, prompting buses to remain off," Chaitanya Basak, an advocate, told The Daily Star.
Water ran into exhaust pipes of motorised vehicles, causing them to break down and induce traffic snarl-ups on the main streets. Rickshaws were in great demand among the office goers, although the number of the non-motorised vehicles was few.
It has been drizzling for the last three days due to active monsoon, but heavy rains poured down the capital since early yesterday and continued until 1:00pm.
The meteorology department recorded 101 millimetres (mm) of rain in the 24 hours until 6:00am and 59 mm during 6:00am to 12:00pm in Dhaka yesterday.
The highest rainfall in Dhaka was recorded 60mm on July 19 last year, according to Met Office. "Though the monsoon this year began late, but the amount of rainfall is higher than the same time last year," an official at the Met Office told The Daily Star.
He added that medium range rainfall with intervals would continue for the next few days. However, there is no possibility for heavy wind or low over the Bay of Bengal.
Most educational institutions were forced to remain closed, as the students failed to attend classes
Mamunur Rahman, a teacher of Bangladesh Institute of Science and Technology at Malibagh, said he had gone to take classes, but found no students.
Most banks and offices in the city's commercial district Motijheel remained closed, as clients failed to make their way to the business hub.
"Transaction in our bank was less than 50 percent as compared to a normal business day," said a banker in Motijheel.
Dhaka Stock Exchange also failed to resume trading due to quorum crisis.
The street beside the Secretariat was also submerged under kneedeep water, while somelifts went out of order, as water entered the buildings. Fire service men were called in to pour water away from the ground floors and re-started only onelift.
Outside Dhaka, the rainfall was recorded 63 mm in Faridpur, 62 mm in Cox's Bazar, 42 mm in Bhola, 39 mmin Khepupara, 31 mm in Chandpur and Maizdi Court, 28 mm in Bogra and 19 in Teknaf.
NARAYANGANJ
Our Narayanganj correspondent reports that rain-induced waterlogging affected around 20 lakh people living on Dhaka-Narayanganj-Demra (DND) embankment and forced thousand others to take shelter at their relative or neighbours' houses outside the embankment.
Scarcity of gas and drinking water was acutein the DND area. People are having trouble with cooking as many cooking stoves went under water. Frequent power snaps added to their
miseries.
TELEPHONE TROUBLE
Hundreds of telephones of the staterun Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board (BTTB) went dead in the capital, as rainwater leaked into old cabinet boxes and underground cables, officials said.
A large number of subscribers made complaints to BTTB camp offices after their telephones went out of order.
Subscribers under the Nilkhet, Mirpur, Sher-e-Bangla Nagar and Basabo exchanges mostly suffered the malfunctions. A substantial number of telephones were out of order under Maghbazar, Uttara and Chawkbazar exchanges as well.
The subscribers of these exchanges said most of their telephone connections could not be reconnected.
"It's not possible to reconnect the telephones as rainwater may snap other connections if the boxes are opened during rain," said a senior BTTB official asking not to be named.
"Our employees will work extra hours to reconnect the telephones once the rainis over," he added.
Subscribers alleged that the BTTB telephones regularly malfunction after rain due to improper ducting and cabinet placement. BTTB officials and workers often do not pay heed to complaints, they added.