Wading in the rain
A GİRNE pressure group has called on the town’s municipality and district office to stop passing the buck and deal with flooding caused by construction, inadequate infrastructure and diverted stream beds.
The warning from the Girne Initiative platform that these factors had made their town flood-prone came less than 48 hours before torrential rains on Wednesday.
The downpours also caught out motorists and pedestrians in Lefkoşa as parts of the city flooded, including new slip roads at the Gönyeli roundabout.
More rain was forecast by the Meteorological Department for the rest of the working week and again tomorrow.
The Girne Initiative statement emphasised that flooding in the town was common even during normal rainfall — which again hit problem areas on Wednesday and was, said the group, a cause of regular anxiety among residents.
The unresolved problem of the Haji Halil stream bed was cited, on Vakıflar land to the east of the Anafartalar secondary school which the statement said had seen further construction infringements, despite a Girne District Office and Land Registry study.
A warning letter by the Girne District Office and approaches by Girne Municipality and the Town Planning Department had yielded no results.
An Initiative spokesman said officials were duty-bound to prosecute illegal constructors and pursue to the end cases already brought to court, rather than distributing booklets with pictures of public works.
Wednesday’s storms saw breakdown trucks pressed into service to rescue stranded motorists at the Gönyeli roundabout on the outskirts of the capital. A nearby bus stop was half submerged, while recently added slip roads were flooded and unprepared tourists were left wading along city streets.
Drivers were trapped in a 40-minute tailback to the Gönyeli roundabout on Dr Fazıl Küçük Bulvarı, near the industrial estate and Atatürk stadium, with the day’s rainfall estimated at 35-40mm at Near East University.
A spokesman for the Geology and Mining Department said the area north of the capital was also prone to flooding, explaining: “A river bed runs directly across the GirneLefkoşa road to the Opel showroom and Göçmenköy and the ground there is high in clay.
“Lefkoşa sits on the beds of rivers from the Troodos and Güzelyurt . . . to Gazimağusa.
“The city is in an area full of first- and second-degree aquifers and pervious rock and is also fed by riverbeds from Girne and the surrounding area.”