EACH time the sky turns gloomy with dark clouds hovering above, Chin Yee Lun gets jittery and starts bracing up for a wet and hard day.
Chin gets exhausted just thinking about the difficult time he will have when the rain comes down and the flood goes up, causing his shop in Jalan Tun Tan Siew Sin, Kuala Lumpur, to be flooded.
Inundated: The car park behind Concorde Hotel after a downpour.
Since the beginning of this year, Kuala Lumpur has been cast under a wet spell with heavy rainfall occurring almost every evening, causing flash floods in various parts of the capital city, resulting in traffic chaos, damages to vehicles, losses in business and goods, and a mountain of other problems.
Chin is just one of the hundreds of traders in the vicinity of the Petaling Street hot business area who have been badly affected by the frequent flash floods. They not only cannot do business in the unfriendly weather, their goods are also damaged, costing them much financial losses.
The geographical contour of Kuala Lumpur has many low land areas in the prime city spots, including Jalan Sultan Ismail, Jalan Alor, Jalan Imbi, Jalan Petaling and the surrounding areas.
The areas surrounding Jalan Petaling have always been flood-prone even during the pre-independence days when the commercial hub of the Chinese community moved from the then High Street to Petaling Street.
»The DBKL should consider upgrading the drains, especially in tourist hotspots like Petaling Street« FONG KUI LUN
The main concern is that for years the Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) has tried but never succeeded to mitigate flash floods.
With the current daily heavy downpours, the inefficiency of the city’s drainage system is becoming a major grouse of city folks.
“Even the DBKL has admitted that clogged drains and poor drainage system are the main factors causing flash floods in parts of Kuala Lumpur. If they already know the problem, then why not work at solving it?” Chin asked.
The DBKL has since initiated some ad hoc short-term preventive measures, including immediate clearing of clogged-drains and conducting frequent checks on low land areas, but there is an urgent need to come out with some specific long-term flood mitigation measures.
“It is most unfortunate that the heavy rainfalls for the past few months have so badly affected Kuala Lumpur with many traders and even hotels being on the losing end,” Bukit Bintang MP Fong Kui Lun said.
“When the flood level rises, water enters the shop lots and destroys the goods. The traders have to spend time cleaning up and bear the losses,” he said.
“The DBKL should consider upgrading the drains, especially in tourist hot spots like Petaling Street. It should have put priority to solve flood woes there because it’s such a bad image for foreigners. They will think that this is a country that is flooded all the time,” Fong said.
In terms of long-term preventive measures, building more retention ponds may be an effective option to consider.
Accoding to SMART Tunnel general manager Mohd Fuad Kamal Ariffin, such a measure should be undertaken by the Drainage and Irrigation Department (DID).
“We work with the DID to divert water to ponds but ultimately it is the DID's responsibility to increase the number of retention ponds,” Fuad said.
“It is obvious that when there are more ponds, it would definitely assist in the diversion of water to prevent it flowing into the city. But ultimately, we must realise that all flood-preventive measures must be complemented by a good drainage system,” he said.
“The ponds should be completed as soon as possible because we need more retention ponds to cope with the rapid development in the city. We must also have enough monsoon drains,” Fong said.
The Concorde Hotel along Jalan Sultan Ismail has been one of those big buildings in the city that has been affected by flash floods for more than a decade.
“The usual case would be water flowing from the Caltex petrol station opposite our hotel right to our entrance,” Concorde KL marketing communications manager Julini Yusof said.
According to Julini, the Concorde team has been working closely with the DBKL in the last few weeks to offer suggestions on measures to curb the floods.
“We are willing to work with the DBKL to solve this problem because this is something that affects everyone. We usually take photos and keep tabs when flash floods occur and send them to the DBKL. We also got our engineering people to look at our drainage and see what can be done,” Julini said.
This is a sentiment shared by most establishments in the flood-prone areas, as they are worried that people would be discouraged from going to those areas.
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