LTA, PUB form tunnel flood prevention committee: reports
In the wake of the Bishan-Braddell MRT tunnel flooding in October that affected some 250,000 commuters, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) and national water agency PUB have formed a joint Standing Committee on flood prevention in tunnels.
This was announced by Transport Minister Khaw Boon Wan at the 5th Joint Forum on Infrastructure Maintenance at the Environment Building on Tuesday (5 December), according to media reports. At the event, participants from LTA, PUB, SMRT and SBS Transit came together to share lessons gleaned from the flood.
The minister said that the committee will “institutionalise our lessons and hard-earned experiences, lest they disappear with us at the crematorium”.
Khaw noted that the incident was a “failure of organisational management”, not one of engineering. “The Oct 7 flooding incident will be remembered for a long time. It’d better be,” he added.
Separately, the LTA said in a Facebook post that it has completed its investigations into the 7 October tunnel flooding incident.
“The incident was preventable, had the storm water sump pit and pump system been properly maintained, audited and supervised. SMRT has accepted full responsibility for the incident and disciplined the staff found responsible,” said the authority.
LTA and SMRT have since enhanced the robustness and resilience of flood protection measures at Bishan and other tunnel portals (where trains go from aboveground to underground) to prevent such incidents from recurring, added the transport regulator.
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