A flood-free rainy season for Yangon

A flood-free rainy season for Yangon

= Maung Than Weik =

Annually, many of the roads and areas in Yangon are flooded during the rainy season, a scenario the people of this metropolitan are familiar with for many years. And when the roads are inundated there come other hazards such as electrical and traffic accidents that can cause death, injury and property damage.

There is another danger larking under the flood waters. Many of the platforms in Yangon have holes and they become hidden traps when the muddy waters cover them. There are also other traps that are even bigger and more treacherous for pedestrians during the city fl oods. They are the drains built under the platforms. These semi-underground canals are covered with concrete slabs and in many parts the cover slabs are missing leaving big holes in a number of places of the roadside platforms. When flood water makes them invisible they are turned into dangerous traps deep enough to cause serious injuries for any person who falls into one of them.

Normally, the worse hit areas of the city are Pabe-dan, Latha, Lanmadaw and Botahtaung townships in central parts, and Pazundaung, Mingala Taung Nyunt, Dawbon, Mayangon, Thakayta and North Okkalapa townships in other parts.

Recently the Yangon City Development Committee-YCDC announced that it had been in the mission of preventing city floods through the work of dredging the underground and above ground canals, building new drains and extending the existing ones, repairing the platforms, filling the missing covers of the roadside canals in the whole Yangon at a cost of over K 30 billion, saying that it was going to reduce the rainy season flood menace by 50 percent this year. Moreover, YCDC in cooperation with Myanmar Developers Association and Human Settlement and Housing Development Department built over 2000 culverts in North Dagon, South Dagon, East Dagon and Dagon Seikkan townships in fiscal year 2014-2015.

Most of the parts of the drainage system of Yangon are old or even deteriorating that they need proper renovation, substitutions and maintenance. As the population of Yangon is increasing rapidly other problems also arises along with this growth. Among them garbage problem appears as the one helping intensify the city flood menace. But the problem actually comes from the lack of discipline among the Yangonites. Unfortunately many in Yangon indiscriminately discard garbage. Although there are dustbins placed on the roadside platforms, pedestrians and food stalls usually leave garbage on the streets. Rain water washes them into drainages, and when the pieces of garbage assemble into a single big mass they begin to block the channel like a dam. This trend reverses the work of underground drains turning them into portals that fill water on the city streets from the conduits channeling water out of the city. Another supporter of the city floods is tides. Most of the drainages empty into the nearby rivers and creeks. When the tides come, water levels of these natural water bodies rise and the current turns upwards blocking the flow of
water from the drains as their openings are under the water during the tides.

But the main culprit is the random throwing of trash that causes blockages in the drains. Hence, it is important for the authorities concerned and the YCDC to look into their garbage collection and disposal system while educating and rallying the public to join hands with them in making Yangon a clean and green city free from floods during the rainy season.

From now on, let us all be systematic and disciplined in throwing garbage right into the dustbins, and enjoy a rainy season free from city floods.

#Themyawadydaily