Dubai: A main water pipeline burst on Thursday night in Discovery Gardens area led to massive flooding on the roads with submerged cars, electric short circuiting and traffic jams.
Thousands of residents of the Discovery Garden were either forced to stay at home or spent night out as the roads were blocked by the police due to heavily inundated roads due to flooding. Many residents were not able to return to their homes until the early hours of the Friday morning.
One of the main water pipeline of Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) burst behind Ibn Batuta Mall in the Discovery Gardens area at around 10pm on Thursday.
Abdulla Al Hajri, Executive Vice President of Customer Services at Dewa told Gulf News that the flooding was caused by the bursting of one of the main transport water lines in the area.
“A pipe with a diameter of 1.2 meters burst at 10pm yesterday night, quickly swamping the streets of the residential community,” he added.
A resident of the area,Sadek, said that he was stopped by the police at 2.30am on his way back to his apartment in Discovery Gardens and was asked to return in the morning once the situation was under control.
Sadek explained that the entrance to the residential area from the Ibn Batuta Mall area was completely blocked.
“On my way back this morning there was still a lot of water, lots of cars were under water- it’s a big flood,” he added.
Another resident Mohammad Adel said that it took him over two hours to return to his home after passing the entrance for Discovery Gardens. Watching the water swamp the area, Adel said the flooding also resulted in electrical sparks and power disruptions. Police asked residents to remain in their house until the evening hours after the authorities have resolved the issue, he added.
With large amounts of water flooding dozens of cars parked outside residential buildings, resident Vibhav Shukla, indicated that the situation in the area was worst than described. “It was not just flooding, it was a huge fire with a blast, we even felt vibrations,” he said.
Husain Al Banna, Director of Traffic at RTA’s Traffic and Roads Agency, who was supervising the RTA’s emergency response team on the spot, commented on the situation explaining that only internal roads have been affected. “We coordinated with DEWA and maximum efforts were exerted to limit the impact on residents,” he said.
“Our emergency team and tankers worked hard to suck the water out. The situation is under control and all roads were opened until midday on Friday,” he added.
An estimated number of more than 60,000 people live in the Discovery Gardens which has over 24,000 apartments.
A spokesman from Nakheel, the real estate developer of the community, said that while the pipe burst is a DEWA issue, Nakheel teams have been working with the authorities throughout the night to resolve the issue. “We have been working with the RTA, DEWA and the police to resolve the problem, and we apologise to anyone who has been inconvenienced by the issue,” added the Nakheel spokesperson.
- With inputs from Shafaat Shahbandari, Staff Reporter
