Dubai: The Dubai Municipality on Tuesday revealed that it collected 16 million gallons of water from the flooding at Discovery Gardens on Thursday night.
“All the water has been removed and there are only a few patches left, which were too small to be pumped out. But we expect the small patches to evaporate within 48 hours because the sun is quite strong now,” Eng Redha Salman, director of public health and safety department at Dubai Municipality, told Gulf News.
He pointed out that the swift action of the municipality’s emergency response team helped reduce potential dangers to residents in the Discovery Gardens area, following the bursting of one of the water pipelines.
“Residents do not have to worry about any health or safety risks in the aftermath of the flood because there is no stagnant water, and since there is no still water, there should be no need to worry about contracting diseases,” said Salman, who also heads the corporate emergency and crisis committee.
“In such situations, our actions should be well coordinated and organised in order to make it fast and effective. In many cases [in the past], our approved action plan was proven to be effective,” he said.
Dubai Municipality’s team drained out nearly 75,000 cubic metres, which is approximately 16 million gallons. A total of eight tankers were used, with each having the capacity of 5,000 gallons.
Eng Hassan Makki, director of sewerage and irrigation network department at the municipality, was responsible in leading the team to drain out the water from the area and its roads.
“It was late night on Thursday when we received a call from the police department of a pipe burst and the flood that followed it, which resulted in blocked roads and left residents unable to reach their directions. Without any delay we deployed a team to carry out operations, according to the emergency plan we follow to tackle such circumstances,” said Makki.
“Our team started action at 1 o’clock early morning on Friday with eight tankers and pump sets and worked continuously for 15 hours just to pump out the water,” he added.
