LAHORE: The impact of Tuesday’s downpour was not limited to The Mall as it led to appearance of more sinkholes in the city, especially one on Gulshan-i-Ravi main boulevard, on Thursday.

Exposing a lack of quality work, the depressions or sinkholes created a great deal of inconvenience to the pedestrians and motorists.

As the main incident was highlighted by the news channels, panicked officials rushed to the main Gulshan-i-Ravi Road near Samanabad Morr and found a sinkhole. They found a similar sinkhole at Gulberg’s Hali Road and there were reports about such craters in other parts of Lahore as well.

At Gulshan-i-Ravi, Deputy Commissioner retired Capt Anwarul Haq directed the officials to plug the sinkhole as early as possible to facilitate road users. Wardens also should ensure smooth flow of traffic on the road, he said.

“The sinkhole on the road leading to Gulshan-i-Ravi near Multan Road appeared after the underground 54-inch Wasa’s sewer line collapsed due to rainwater. The Wasa authorities rushed to the spot and started rectifying the issue,” according to an official source.

Absence of retaining wall, PTCL duct blamed for The Mall sinkhole

He said the Wasa and LDA officials quickly responded to various complaints about sinkholes on Hali Road, a road near Ichhra and other parts of the city.

Engineers say such sinkholes after a rain clearly show negligence on the part of those entrusted with the task of building road infrastructure. “It’s simple that if there is no proper earth-filling, compaction and asphalt laying works, the road will have such depressions during or after rain. Had all these works been done in accordance with the engineering guidelines, a rain could batter a road at the most,” says a civil engineer.

The Mall sinkhole: The fact-finding committee constituted by the caretaker chief minister on Thursday declared that besides the missing PTCL duct, absence of a retaining wall led to the sinking of a portion of The Mall over the GPO Chowk underground railway station of the Orange Line Metro Train.

The report was presented during a meeting presided over by provincial caretaker transport minister Mian Nauman Kabir, who also ordered fixing of the responsibility for the road sinking and stern action against those found responsible for it.

Chief Secretary Akbar Durrani ordered fixing of the responsibility within three days.

He also ordered completion of the survey of the entire underground track of the Metro train as soon as possible to avert such incident in future.

Mr Durrani directed the Lahore Development Authority (LDA) director general and other departments concerned to implement recommendations of the committee.

Meanwhile, the chief secretary visited the Jinnah Hospital and Allama Iqbal Medical College (AIMC). He inspected different wards of the hospital, asked the patients about provision of healthcare facilities and issued necessary orders for resolving their problems on the spot.

He directed the communication and works (C&W) department to prepare the cost estimation for repairs and maintenance of the AIMC hostels. He also ordered early completion of the repair work of nursing hostel of the Jinnah Hospital.

Published in Dawn, July 06th, 2018