Temporary access road worsened Tampines flooding

The flooding at Tampines Avenue 12 on Jan 8 was aggravated by a temporary access road that was built at a construction site without PUB approval.

At a press briefing yesterday, the national water agency said this caused the run-offs from the heavy downpour that day to overflow into the roadside drain.

At its peak, the rainfall between 8am and 8.30am had an intensity of 56mm per hour. It reached up to 118.8mm, about half of Singapore's average monthly rainfall this month, within four hours.

This caused flash floods in nine locations in eastern Singapore.

PUB said the weather was due to the north-east monsoon and was aggravated by the development of a Sumatran windstorm over the Malacca Strait, which headed eastwards.

While eight of the areas have drainage works in progress, at Tampines Avenue 12 it was a different situation altogether.

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The director of PUB's catchment and waterways department, Mr Yeo Keng Soon, said yesterday: "The flood was caused by the intense rainfall that exceeded the design drainage capacity and therefore, the flooding happened. The flooding at Tampines Avenue 12 was aggravated by storm run-offs from the adjacent side."

Mr Yeo said the access road will be removed by the end of the week and further investigations are required to determine if PUB will take action against the contractor, Hua Tiong.

PUB is working with the developer to improve drainage at the access road. A permanent drainage system will also be built in tandem with the upcoming development project.

Mr Yeo said it is not practical to design or enlarge the drainage to accommodate every extreme storm.

He said: "Doing so will lead to significantly higher costs and take up a whole lot more land. The expanded drain capacity will also not be required most of the time."

PUB said the north-east monsoon season is expected to continue until March.

The Straits Times reported yesterday that less wet weather is expected in Singapore for the second half of this month.

It quotedthe Meteorological Service Singapore as saying there will be five to seven days of short thundery afternoon showers, which could extend into the evening on a few days.