KUWAIT: The minister of public works announced yesterday that a panel would be formed to examine why some roads and public places were swamped with rainwater late Friday. Civil servants who were slack and failed to deal with the situation "would be exposed" along with those who were responsible for the wide-scale flooding witnessed in Kuwait due to heavy rain, Abdulrahman Al-Mutawa indicated.
In a statement to Kuwait News Agency (KUNA), Mutawa said he held an emergency meeting with officials of his department to discuss the causes of the problem. A special and neutral committee will be formed to examine the causes that led to accumulation of huge volumes of water on roads and public squares in the country, he added, indicating that names of the civil servants responsible for the problem would be publicized.
The slack personnel including contractors will be referred to the public prosecution, the minister declared. The relevant panel will prepare a report about the issue and refer it to competent authorities in two weeks. Some low-lying locations in the country were swamped with torrential rainwater late Friday, amid unstable weather gripping the entire Arabian Peninsula.
Meanwhile, the fire department's PR and media department said firemen dealt with 49 reports during the recent stormy weather. The department added that all land, marine and airport fire brigades were on full alert during the stormy weather, when rainfall reached 50 mm in Ahmadi and boats had to be used to rescue 20 people trapped inside their vehicles by the rainwater. KFSD added that divers made sure no one was trapped inside completely submerged vehicles. - Agencies