Thursday's floods an event that occurs once every 50 years
By Asha Popatlal, Channel NewsAsia | Posted: 20 November 2009 1933 hrs

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SINGAPORE: A big clean-up is underway on Friday in many areas across Singapore which were flooded due to the heavy rainfall on Thursday.

Environment and Water Resources Minister Yaacob Ibrahim said that work is ongoing to improve the structure of the drains to cope better with such events.

The wet season, due to the northeast monsoon, could well spill over into January. Authorities here said they are planning to upgrade some facilities in phases.

Dr Yaacob said: "I hope the public will have more patience with us because it will take us some time to enlarge those drains. But having said that, it is not possible for us to plan for every event.

"Yesterday's event, I was told by the PUB, occurs once every 50 years. It could be tomorrow. But we have to plan accordingly. Most importantly, we have to have a proper drainage system... (that is) being continually upgraded, and a proper response system."

The damage in affected areas, such as an underground carpark at Sixth Avenue Centre, is still being calculated. Residents told MediaCorp that workers toiled through most of the night to pump out the flood waters, which apparently came up to about 2 metres.

Workers were still pumping out debris that had swept into the drainage areas on Friday. Some residents said they were still in shock after seeing their cars float away from their lots.

At Eng Neo Avenue, the Zhang residence looks none the worse for wear. But that was after a massive clean-up into the night as flood waters had caused the pond to overflow and damage the wooden floors.

Myrna Morales, a domestic worker, said the flooding was so bad that carpets had to be removed to mop up the water.

Amidst the clean-up, car workshops have reported increased business for repair works that range from drying out cars to repairing engines, costing over S$10,000.


- CNA/so