Monday night’s rain that continued till early Tuesday
has, as always, brought to the fore issues that the city residents face
after rain. Of the many, one is the waterlogging of subways and
underpasses that help people move between the eastern and western parts
of the railway track.

Tuesday morning was no
different. The city had witnessed an average of only 85.76 mm rain and
it had left the Lanka Corner underpass, Avanashi Road subway, Kaleeswara
Mill underpass, the underpass on Shastri Road (near Kikani school) and
North Coimbatore subway waterlogged.

The Coimbatore
Corporation rushed its men and machinery to the spots to flush out the
water. Commissioner in-charge S. Sivarasu said that at the Lanka Corner
underpass, the civic body started the work around 6 a.m. and finished it
within a couple of hours.

Similarly, the Corporation
had also quickly cleaned the Kaleeswara Mill underpass, which connects
Brooke Bond Road with Kattoor. By around 9 a.m. the Corporation was also
able to throw open the Shastri Road underpass for traffic.

At
the Avanashi Road subway and the North Coimbatore one, it faced
problems in that during power cuts, the Corporation was able to run only
the diesel-powered machinery.

For close to three hours, the flushing-out operation suffered. And this delayed the completion of the task, he said.

Seeing
the Corporation barricades at the entrances of the subways, motorists
took the flyover. This led to an increase in the number of vehicles,
which moved at snail’s pace, on the flyover and had a cascading effect
on the nearby traffic signals as well.

Mr. Sivarasu said that the Corporation was prepared for rain.

It
had asked its men to be in a state of alert to remove trees as and when
they fall, flush out water from low-level areas and restore roads for
traffic at the earliest.

He also said that people could get in touch with the Corporation to solve rain-related civic problems.