Flooding at main artery raises question over touted drainage tunnel
Hazlin Hassan Straits Times 22 Dec 11;
KUALA LUMPUR: Last week's massive flooding at one of the capital's major arteries, Jalan Tun Razak, has prompted City Hall to launch new flood mitigation measures.
It has also raised a question: Why didn't a RM1.9 billion (S$780 million) flood drainage tunnel prevent the deluge, which caused traffic to come to a standstill for at least two hours in the evening?
The so-called Stormwater Management And Road Tunnel (Smart) was launched with much fanfare in 2007. It was designed to carry traffic on its upper decks on dry days and channel rainwater away from the city during heavy storms.
Last week's flooding enraged thousands of motorists who were trying to get home from work. In an editorial, the usually pro-government The Star newspaper blamed poorly planned new projects constructed along and over the river.
At Monday's Kuala Lumpur City Hall budget meeting, KL Mayor Ahmad Fuad Ismail said the city would spend RM85 million on long-term measures to prevent recurrences at Jalan Tun Razak.
This will include RM20 million to divert water from Sungai Bunus, which runs through the area, to the nearby Lake Titiwangsa.
Other parts of the country are also flooding because of the unusually heavy rain. In Johor yesterday, the number of flood victims evacuated to the state's 41 relief centres rose to more than 3,000.
In the last few years, the Smart has been credited with saving KL from major floods.
The Star said in its editorial: 'Motorists were irritated when the tunnel had to be closed to accommodate the draining of rainwater to the retention ponds, but, generally, city folk were impressed.'
Smart officials protested that their tunnel could only do so much.
'The Smart does not cover the whole of KL,' Smart's control centre director Low Koon Sing told The Straits Times. 'The flooding caused by Sungai Bunus is outside the protection of the Smart.'
He added that last Tuesday, the day of the huge floods, the tunnel diverted 1.2 million cu m of rainwater, preventing even worse floods.
That was the day when Sungai Bunus recorded rainfall of 230mm in less than two hours, according to the Drainage and Irrigation Department.
But The Star asked in its editorial: 'Why was this not thought of earlier when billions were being spent on the Smart and the other flood mitigation projects implemented over the years?'
Environmentalist Gurmit Singh, of the Centre for Environment, Technology and Development Malaysia, said poor urban planning and littering were to blame for the floods.
'The drainage system is not well-maintained, and people throw all sorts of things in the drains,' he told The Straits Times. 'That's why flooding is so common in urban areas.'
'The development near Sungai Bunus was allowed up to the point of the river bank, and that may have reduced the capacity of the river,' he added.
