As we now know, yesterday’s floods in KL have been attributable to tremendous heavy rainfall – up to half a month’s worth of rain crashed down in simply two hours, overwhelming our drainage and spilling over all over the place. Some of probably the most dramatic scenes on social media was of the Kesas Highway trying like a brown river.
The stretch that was flooded was close to the Awan Besar toll plaza, the place Sungai Kuyuh overflowed. Highway operators opened the central divided at KM47.8, permitting some vehicles to escape through a U-turn. Some have been stranded. However, issues subsided comparatively shortly on the E5, as with the flood at Jalan Kuchai Lama/NPE.
At 7pm yesterday, the freeway concessionaire introduced that water has fully receded and all routes have been open to all autos. They shared photographs of some broken toll cubicles and stated that cleansing was underway.
Over in KL metropolis, the Smart Tunnel’s Mode 3 was activated at 4.44pm. Mode 3 is when the Smart system has been activated and the motorway portion of the dual-purpose tunnel will likely be closed to traffic, to permit for stormwater diversion. The tunnel was reopened to traffic at 10pm yesterday evening.
Named by CNN as one of the world’s greatest tunnels, the Smart Tunnel is each a motorway bringing traffic out and in of town centre, and a flood aid tunnel. The 9.7 km storm water tunnel (motorway tunnel size is 4 km) was constructed to clear up the issue of flash floods in KL and its presence absolutely would have saved the capital metropolis from extra critical injury yesterday.
When there are floods, rainwater might be diverted into Smart’s decrease channel, whereas the higher stage will stay open to traffic. When heavy floods happen and max water capability is required, the tunnel is closed to all traffic and watertight gates open to permit floodwater to move by way of each higher and decrease channels. This engineering marvel was accomplished in 2007.
