ISLAMABAD, Feb 18: The chief commissioner and chairman of the Capital Development Authority (CDA), Mir Laiq Shah, put on high alert the flood relief cell in the authority and an emergency cell has been set up in the Fire Headquarter building.

Headed by the director sanitation of the authority, Mustafain Kazmi, the emergency cell has already started functioning and attended as many as 22 distress calls on Tuesday.

“These calls were received from F-10, I-8 residential sectors as well as some from commercial plazas in the Blue Area on Jinnah Avenue,” he said.

He said all these calls seeking help were concerning inundating of basements in the houses or commercial units where rainwater gushed from the toilets/bathrooms. The emergency cell has been equipped with 10 suction pumps and two flushing units and is being manned by the staff from the sanitation directorate round-the-clock.

“People facing any problem because of rain can call the emergency cell on telephone numbers: 134, 16 or on 9213908. The emergency calls will be attended round-the-clock as quickly as possible,” the director sanitation told Dawn. He said the suction pumps had been spread all over the city to enable the CDA teams to attend the emergency calls as quickly as possible and these teams were equipped with the wireless equipment. “This will greatly improve the response time to any distress call,” he said.

Earlier, in the morning the CDA chairman took a round of the city to monitor the situation. He paid visits to some kutchi abadis as well as checked the ‘bottlenecks’ identified in the natural drains and water courses running down from Margallas and passing through the city.

A meeting of the Islamabad administration was also held in the office of the chief commissioner, which was attended by the deputy commissioner, SSP, CDA director sanitation and other senior officials.

The meeting reviewed the situation and approved some measures to meet any emergency situation emerging out if the continuing rain took stormy proportions.