Development site at Bangsar South caused flash floods: Wan Junaidi

KUALA LUMPUR: The development site in the Bangsar South area caused the flash flood on the Federal Highway in the city on Monday evening.
Stating this, Natural Resources and Environment (NRE) Minister Datuk Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar urged Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) to identify the problem at the site, which led to the flooding.
"The problem here is the construction or development site," he said.
He stressed that there were no problems with the drainage and culvert, which comes under the purview of his ministry.
"It was not the sort of rain that can cause flooding in that area or Kuala Lumpur. The capacity of our drainage and culvert could still handle the rain which poured between 1pm-4pm that day.
"The level of drainage and irrigation in the whole of KL is able to handle the rain and could not have led to flooding.
"But what happened was, the mud and debris from the development site along the highway in that area flowed into the drains and clogged the culverts. The culverts could not allow water to flow out to the river due to the clogging, thus automatically the rain water overflowed to the road," he told a press conference in Parliament today.
A flash flood near the Bangsar South area along Federal Highway caused a standstill, reducing traffic from five-lanes to a single lane towards Petaling Jaya.
Wan Junaidi said based on NRE's checks immediately on Monday, the river at the time of the flooding could still contain the rain water but the rain water did not flow into the river.
"There was one and a half metre margin capacity to take in rain water during heavy downpour. So the flooding was clearly not caused by overflowing river or overflowing drains," he said.
Wan Junaidi said the construction site should have its own retention pond and trap to filter debris from flowing into drains and clogging them.
He said the developers and contractors probably did not take these matters into consideration at the site.
"So the offence has not been identified yet. I hope DBKL will ascertain whether an offence has been committed under the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). This is because any development approved before August 2015 will not have to comply with the EIA, as it was only gazetted after August 2015," Wan Junaidi said, adding that he is yet to receive the information from DBKL.
He said the projects approved prior to August 2015 were done under the discretion of local councils.