Heavy rain inundates Madurai roads, restores garbage to cleaned channels

Madurai: The rain that lashed Madurai and its suburbs on Thursday night saw the district receiving an average rainfall of 54 mm in just ten hours, the highest in a day in recent times, with many places being inundated and normal life getting affected in many parts of the city. The rain also brought back to square one the garbage problem of city water channels which were cleaned by Madurai corporation in a week-long drive. Most of them were filled with garbage in the rain.

Streets including Masi Streets and four veli streets where the smart city works are under way were flooded. ``Since the paver blocks are dislodged, walking on these roads could have serious consequences,’’ said S Sundar of Simmakkal. Shopkeepers in Masi street say they have been fearing the rain after smart city works started as water entered the shops causing havoc. ``The old city had a better drainage system compared to the modern one which is inefficient despite using a lot of technology,’’ said Pandian, a store keeper. Roads in DRO colony and also Natham Road, where bridge works are under way, got muddy and slushy. Water also stagnated on main roads where medians did not allow the flow, affecting traffic movement.

Meanwhile, a week into the cleaning exercise, heavy rain has washed in garbage that people dumped into channels, and blocked the path of water. Pannaiyur, Sottathatti, Kiruthumal Nadhi and Avaniapuram channels wore a sorry sight on Friday after the rain. Kiruthumal Nadhi, once a free flowing river in the city that turned into a sewage channel, also was filled with garbage on Friday morning. Same was the case with most other channels bringing water to the tanks. The place where the channels flow into the Mariamman teppakulam also had garbage, predominantly plastics stagnating while water flowed anbove it .

``They clean it before the rain and it gets filled with garbage after the rain,’’ said A Asokan of Bibikulam, where the channel is a perpetual garbage dump. Corporation commissioner Dr K P Karthikeyan said they were facing difficulties in some channels like Pannaiyur as it is a heavily populated area. There are problems in JCBs having access to the channels. The garbage which gets washed away in such channels gets accumulated near the culverts. ``We have improved the collection mechanism and secondary movement to a reasonable extent. We are working on improving bin quality and maintenance. Once that is also done, we will start enforcing this strictly,’’ he said.

Almost all parts of the city as well as rural areas received an average rainfall of over 50 mm. Madurai north received 72.40 mm, airport 49 mm, Tallakulam - 48 mm, and Viraganur - 62 mm. Pullipatti in the district received the highest rainfall of 118.60 mm followed by Idayapatti with 80 mm.