Emergency services blame poor drainage system for city paralysis

Torrential rain of unusual proportions, for the second time in four months, hit Warsaw in the early hours of Tuesday morning. Residents woke up to find many parts of the city paralyzed as the rain had flooded tunnels and roads, leaving cars, busses and trucks stranded in key points of the road network. Those who struggled on found sometimes their engines flooded with water and found themselves in need of rescue. The roadside was full of cars whose ignition systems were unable to cope with the wash. Many main roads were covered by up to 30 centimeters of water, while in some parts the water was over a meter deep. Municipal services have worked round the clock to clear the roads and flooded cellars. They say that over six hours 76 millimeters per cubic meter of rain fell, while the average rainfall for the whole of August is just 50 millimeters. (Zycie, p. 6) K.S.