Bernama

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 5 (Bernama) — The first real flood diversion at the Stormwater Management and Road Tunnel (SMART) here on Monday night was successful and has proven to be effective in reducing flash floods in the city, said Kuala Lumpur Flood Mitigation Project director K J Abraham.

He said in the exercise, the Stormwater Control Centre (SCC) in the city alerted SMART’s control centre when the water levels at its monitoring stations reached critical level.

“SMART’s control centre went into immediate action and started evacuation procedures. The process took an hour before the tunnel was closed to traffic,” he told a press conference here today.

Abraham said the tunnel diverted about 500,000 cubic metres of rainwater into the Taman Desa holding pond thus keeping water levels safe at the 29-metre mark at the monitoring stations.

He said floodwater subsided at midnight before SMART’s control centre activated tunnel opening procedures after required inspections and cleaning work were done and that by 5am on Tuesday the tunnel was re-opened to traffic.

The RM1.9-billion tunnel, now fully operational, is able to divert rain water away from the confluence of Sungai Klang and Sungai Ampang in the city.

“Next year, the Batu and Jinjang ponds under the Gombak River diversion channel project will be operational and this will further help reduce flash floods in the city,” said Abraham.

The 13.2-metre diametre tunnel, construction of which began in 2003, is a 9.7km stormwater bypass tunnel with a four-kilometre dual-deck motorway within it.

It was built to solve the problem of flash flooding in the city as well as reduce traffic jams during daily rush hours.