03 Mar, 9:00 AM
Good morning. It’s a grey third day of Ramadan with overcast skies. Today we’re looking back at the extreme weather from Sunday. In other news, we have a government tender to conduct surveys for a bridge in Addu and US$ 10 million to be spent on discounts for electricity and water bills for Ramadan.
A staggering 296mm of rainfall in Kaafu Dhiffushi was the highest daily accumulated rainfall recorded since the Met office started collecting data.
It was measured by an automatic weather station on the small island near Malé from 8am on Saturday to 8am on Sunday. The deluge in Dhiffushi broke previous records by some distance.
The extreme weather came less than a month after the Met office climatologist told the Maldives Independent that such “high intensity, high frequency” events predicted by climate change forecasts were becoming more common.
On Saturday night, the Met office issued orange alerts for torrential downpours and thunderstorms for the central atolls. As heavy rainfall caused severe flooding in Malé, the National Disaster Management Authority relocated 40 people from four households with sewage leaks and emergency teams spent the night sandbagging and clearing out floodwaters.
The police advised against driving four-wheeled vehicles unless necessary and offered rides to people stranded at the inundated Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital area.
Police officers and soldiers pumped out 16,911 tonnes from six areas in Malé, assisted 131 households and placed 976 sandbags, according to the Maldives National Defence Force.
The city council used 10 stormwater drainage pumps – including two newly-acquired industrial pumps with 10 times the speed of normal ones – at the four worst spots in Maafannu and discharged 1,000 tonnes into the sea by 10pm.
Soldiers were also deployed to the nearby islands of Guraidhoo, Huraa, Himmafushi, Thulusdhoo and Maafushi in Kaafu atoll as well as Maamigili in Alif Dhaalu atoll, all of which suffered household damages from flooding,
In Guraidhoo, residents of nine homes needed to be relocated. Furniture was damaged in half of households in Thulusdhoo, according to the island council.
On Sunday morning, a speedboat with three crewmembers and 45 passengers, including four children, sank en route from Dhigurah to Malé. They were rescued at sea by a police emergency team, who reported that all of them were in good health.
In a separate accident at sea, the Coastguard rescued a speedboat with four crew members and 34 tourists after the vessel sustained damage and started taking in water.
An Emirates flight from Colombo to Malé was unable to land for four hours.
After the orange alert was extended until 7am, the president’s spokeswoman announced at 4:38am that Sunday would be a government holiday, citing “difficulties and burdens faced by the public as a result of non-stop heavy rain for many hours and flooding in some areas.”