KUALA LUMPUR: Federal Territories Minister Khalid Abdul Samad denies claims that the Stormwater Management And Road Tunnel (SMART) has failed.
He said if that was true, the country's capital would have been inundated by flood waters during heavy rain like the old days.
He said the public's confusion on the tunnel's function was believed to have been due to the recent case of a car trapped in a tunnel during heavy rain which went viral on the Internet.
"SMART, for those who don't really understand, is a tunnel that operates in three stages. In the early stage, during normal or medium rain, water can flow and cars can go through the tunnel at the same time.
"In the next stage of heavier rain, two levels of the tunnel are still accessible to vehicles as water flows underneath.
"However in the case of very heavy rain, they (authorities) will start preventing cars from entering (the tunnel) and the whole tunnel is then used to let water flow out to the lake, this prevents flooding from becoming worse," he explained.
With the tunnel, Khalid said it helps to reduce the problem of flooding, however, sometimes the water flow becomes stuck during heavy rain.
This he said is not the fault of the tunnel, but is due to clogged drains, among others, which then leads to water unable to flow smoothly.
Khalid said this in response to a recent incident where a car was
partially submerged in flood water at a road tunnel near Jalan Tun Razak, here.
While it was earlier reported that the incident took place in the SMART tunnel, this was later clarified as the tunnel along Jalan Tun Razak and not SMART.
Commenting further, Khalid said among the causes of flash floods in Kuala Lumpur presently is the increased number of development projects.
This he said makes it difficult to ensure the cleanliness and maintain good condition of the drainage system.
"These developments are not just in certain areas but everywhere, for example the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) projects, and some are in narrow areas which makes it difficult to have water retention ponds," he said.
He added that such ponds are put in place at project sites however for projects close to the roads, it is difficult to have the ponds due to limited space.