Almost a year after witnessing a flood-like situation here, several parts of Mohali town were on Thursday again in knee-deep water following a downpour that lasted an hour and a half.
Water accumulated in several parts of the town. The worst-affected areas included Phase 4 and Phase 11 where the Mohali administration had to press fire tenders into service to drain out the rainwater.
Phase 11, which has a large number of houses (No. 1301 to 1457), was the worst affected where nearly 3 ft of water accumulated during the rain. As the drainage system virtually collapsed, the administration had to send fire tenders there drain out the water.
According to Sukhminder Singh Barnala, a former councillor, rainwater entered several houses and caused a huge loss. “Even hours after the rain stopped, the area was waterlogged. Students of a local government school had to walk through knee-deep water to reach their houses,” said Barnala.
Another resident of the area, Ranjit Singh, claimed that rainwater entered his house as well as that of his neighbours and caused damage to furniture.
“Though the situation was not out of control like last year, but the tall claims of the local administration regarding having made full arrangements for the drainage of rainwater fell flat,” said Ranjit Singh.
The situation was almost similar in the HM Apartments block in Phase 4. A number of residents in the block said rainwater entered their houses.
“Our area was under more than 2 ft of water. As most residents in the area had suffered losses of several lakhs of rupees during the flood-like situation last year, they started making distress calls to the local MC office, the police and the fire brigade for help,” said Kuldip Kaur Kang, area councillor.
She said a fire tender reached there, but it had a snag, and it took nearly half an hour to rectify it after which it started functioning.
“We are thankful to mother nature as the rain stopped after about an hour and a half. Had the downpour continued longer, the situation would have been worse,” said Darshan Singh, a resident of Phase 4.
Hitting out at local leaders, Mohali Mayor Kulwant Singh and MC officials, Kang alleged that they did nothing to address the concerns of the people of the area despite the issue having been taken up repeatedly at MC House meetings. Reports of waterlogging were also received from Phase 3B2, Sector 70, Sector 71, Phase 9 and 10, and rural belts, including Mataur, Mohali village and Kumbhra.
Due to waterlogging on several roads in the town, traffic came to a halt, resulting in huge traffic jams. A large number of vehicles were stuck in snarl-ups on the road separating Sector 71 and the Industrial Area, at Kumbhra Chowk, Gurdwara Singh Shaheedan Chowk, the Mohali-Landran road and on several internal roads.
