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16m gallons pumped out after pipe burst in Gardens

Sixteen million gallons of water was pumped out of the areas behind the Ibn Battuta Mall where a main Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa) pipeline burst on Thursday night causing one of the worst flooding in the city.

The Dubai Municipality has revealed it has cleared this much water after last weekend’s chaos that led to massive flooding on the roads in the area with submerged cars, electric short circuiting and traffic jams. It was the civic body that took the lead in salvaging the flooded residential communities around the Ibn Battuta Mall by pumping out the water.

The chief of the emergency team of the municipality, who termed the incident “one of the most challenging crises that Dubai has witnessed” allayed fears of any public health issues due to the floods.

Though an investigation into the incident is still on, Dewa has not yet given out details of how it happened and the amount of water lost.

However, the Dubai Municipality said on Tuesday, a Sewerage and Irrigation Network Department team toiled for 15 hours and drained about 75,000 cubic metres of water - equivalent to 16 million gallons.

Department director Hassan Makki, who led the activities to drain out the flood water from the inundated area and to reinstate the road transportation stalled during the accident, said in a media statement, that immediate action with emergency plans helped reducing the possible danger the residents in Gardens would have been exposed to following the floods.

“It was late night on Thursday when we received the call from the police department (about the) pipe burst and the flood follow(ing) it, which blocked roads and left residents stranded. Without any delay, we deployed our action team to carry out operations according to the emergency plan we follow to tackle such circumstances.”

He said the team started work at 1am on Friday, with eight tankers and pump sets while staff worked 15 hours continuously.

Eight tankers having the loading capacity of 5,000 gallon removed 3,211 loads of water during this emergency action.

Director of Public Health and Safety Department Redha Hassan Salman, who also heads the Corporate Emergency and Crisis Committee, said most of the flooded areas had been cleared. There would be no public health issues as a result of the floods with the water pumped out and discharged as storm water, he said.

The official said the emergency and crisis plan and coordination between various government departments in Dubai was ready to tackle any such situation.

“In such situations, actions should be well-coordinated and organised in order to make it fast and effective. This is what is meant by the emergency and crisis plan and coordination between Dubai government bodies headed by the police department.”

sajila@khaleejtimes.com