KARACHI, July 7: Life in the almost entire metropolis was paralyzed on Monday as torrential rains, the second spell of the monsoon, hit several towns and caused a virtual collapse of water, power, communication and transport networks.

Though many other towns received light rains, effects of troubles in the neighbouring towns were felt by the people who faced problems mainly of disruption in utility services and lack of transport means.

The worst-hit towns were the areas of formerly south and east districts as well as parts of the ex-west and central districts where ankle- to knee-deep water accumulated within a few hours after the rain started.

Commuters and pedestrians equally faced immense hardship in moving from one place to the other as all the roads and arteries were inundated.

It started raining at about 2.30pm and by 5pm, the Met office had, at its University Road observatory, recorded only 4.2mm rain, and just traces (immeasurable) of rain at the Airport observatory. However, most of the city’s main roads, including Aiwan-i-Saddar Road (housing Governor House and Muslim Gymkhana, M. R. Kayani Road, M. A. Jinnah Road, Old Exhibition (Purani Numaish), Sir Shah Suleman Road and Sharah-i-Quaideen, were already inundated. All the vehicles along the roads hit by heavy downpour had to move at a snail’s pace leading to a massive traffic mess on major thoroughfares. The pedestrians were forced to wade into the deep pools of water. A number of vehicles, especially motorcycles and small vehicles, broke down in the middle of different roads aggravating the situation. The traffic mess in many areas ran into many hours.

The inundation of roads in a short span of just two to three hours of rains not only exposed the efficiency of most of the city’s town administrations, but also proved their claims, pertaining to cleaning of storm-water drains, a farce, some people stuck up in the mess remarked.

A number of towns, and even the city government officials, in their recent meetings had claimed that the all arrangements had been made to drain out the rainwater with the cleaning of storm-water drains.

The rainwater not only disturbed the life of people residing in the city’s low-lying and Old City areas but also caused hardships to pedestrians on those roads and streets which are already in a dilapidated condition owing to presence of trenches as well as deep and wide potholes.

As rainwater remained stagnant on roads, owing to choked drains, commuters (who are usually dropped in the middle of roads by drivers of buses, mini-buses and coaches, were left with no option but to walk through the filthy water.

A major portion of the VVIP Road, Sharea Faisal (from Sharah-i-Quaideen to Karsaz), was flooded as the storm-water drains across the Shah Faisal Colony were choked. Choked drains in Bath Island’s Gulshan-i-Faisal and GOR Colony also resulted in the flooding in a number of localities.

The rainwater remained accumulated on various major roads till late on Monday though the health department workers were trying to flush it out into the drains.

The major roads where rainwater remained accumulated for hours were Shahrah-i-Quaideen, Jehangir Road, a section of Stadium Road, University Road, M. A. Jinnah Road, S. M. Taufiq Road, various roads and arteries in Malir and Khokhrapar, Aiwan-e-Saddar Road, M. R. Kayani Road, Sharea Faisal, and the roads and streets of Nursery.

The localities where ankle-deep water has accumulated are Kharadar, Mithadar, Burnes Road, Ramswami, Bhimpura, Ranchhor Line, PECHS block 2, Kudadad Colony and the a vast area around the Shahrah-i-Quaideen’s roundabout.

CAUTION: Officials of the city government’s water and sanitation department feared that the flushing of rainwater into sewerage manholes might cause a collapse of the sewerage system and contamination of potable water. In this regard, they pointed out that most of the city’s sewerage lines were either carrying a load beyond their capacity or had outlived their lives.