LAHORE: Declaring an emergency, the City District Government of Lahore on Friday announced closure of city's entire educational institutions for Saturday (today) after devastating rain inundated classrooms and offices of scores of schools and colleges.

The announcement was made by the CDGL education executive district officer on behalf of the district coordination officer after the senior officials concerned learnt about thin attendance of the students and those who attended schools/colleges couldn't sit in classrooms due to inundation.

"The situation due to rain has forced us to notify closure of all educational institutions. Since the core objective of the announcement is to ensure safety of the students by all means, we will ensure drainage of rainwater accumulated in the institutions besides repairing rooftops/ceilings of the classrooms/offices on Saturday and Sunday," Education EDO Pervaiz Akhtar told Dawn.

On the other hand, the rain put the entire government departments, mainly the Water and Sanitation Agency, on high alert.

"We have cancelled all sorts of leaves of the field staff for timely drainage of the accumulated rainwater," a Wasa official said.

He said 30 water-sucking machines/trucks placed at various spots to drain out water not enough given the level of inundation. He said besides Wasa, various teams of the Lahore Waste Management Company, town municipal administrations and union councils were in the field.

Published in Dawn, September 6th , 2014