JOHOR BARU, Nov 25 — There were fears that Jalan Wong Ah Fook here would go through the painful experience of eight days ago when flash floods crippled the heart of the city.

An hour of downpour over the city yesterday, which started about 11.30am, brought fears of submerged basement car parks and rising water along the main thoroughfare of Jalan Wong Ah Fook, where Sungei Segget flows.

The Meteorologigal Department said as much 85mm of rain fell over the city in one-and-half hours yesterday, similar to the level recorded on Nov 16. But thanks to six newly installed water pumps, the excess water was channelled into the Straits of Johor.

“Without the pumps which were installed by the Iskandar Regional Development Authority (Irda) on November 18, the situation would have been different. Today, we could drain away the excess water very effectively and averted a situation just like last week where the downpour and the rising tide caused Sungei Segget to overflow its banks,” said an Irda spokesman.

The pumps, installed at an estimated cost of almost RM200,000, were ordered by the Minister of Urban Wellbeing, Local Government and Housing Datuk Abdul Rahman Dahlan after he visited the area a day after the flash floods occurred.

“The water pumps installed at the tidal gates of the mouth of Sungei Segget helped tremendously.

“The river was overflowing already at the height of the downpour but when we switched on the pumps, we managed to drain the water effectively.

“But there was a stretch of the side road along Jalan Suleiman which saw water rising quite high and caused a few cars to be half submerged.

“That was because there was construction work in the area but the road was closed to traffic at that  time and traffic flow wasn’t affected,” said the spokesman.

The Fire and Rescue Department confirmed that there was no serious flooding in the streets of the city centre.

“By 3pm, the water had subsided and traffic flow was back to normal,” said a Fire and Rescue Department spokesman.