‘Isolated incidents’ of flooding in Limassol ‘caused by littering’

The “isolated incidents” of flooding seen in Limassol during storms on Sunday were caused by foreign objects, many of which constitute litter, becoming stuck in drains, the public works department’s senior executive engineer for Limassol Panicos Panayiotou said on Monday.

Speaking to the Cyprus News Agency (CNA), he said that in particular, the flooding of the Polemidia roundabout was caused by litter such as plastic bags being carried away by rainwater towards the drains and then blocking them.

“Unfortunately, people’s habit of throwing litter onto the streets creates this problem. Plastic bags end up on top of the drains, and as such cannot absorb the rainwater,” he said.

With this in mind, he said work began on Monday to clean drains on the motorway between the Mouttayiaka junction and the new Limassol hospital, with those works set to last until December 5.

He added that his department had also been called in to remove rocks from the road between the villages of Yerasa and Agros, and said landslides are “now a frequent phenomenon in periods of bad weather” in the area.

He said there were also some incidents of rockslides on both sides of the tunnel on the motorway connecting Limassol and Paphos.

Asked about the accumulation of water under the bridge on Marinos Yeroulanos street where it dives under the road connecting the motorway and the road to the port, he said his department had been “called on to help” but that the responsibility for the road now lies with the Polemidia municipality and has done since local government reforms came into force in July.

However, Polemidia mayor Andros Theodorou disagreed with this assertion, telling CNA “They still haven’t transferred responsibility [for the road] to us.”

He added that local authorities’ responsibilities “have not yet been clarified” and pinned the blame for the lack of action on the public works department.

“We know that when there is a storm, they close the road with special markings and bars and operate turbines to remove the water. How would we be able to take responsibility for it when we don’t even have the keys for the storage area for such a thing?” he asked.

While not particularly serious, the incidences of flooding did come just a week after District Governor Yiannis Tsouloftas had said there were “no problems or incidents of flooding in the city” after storms a week ago.

“When you carry out a €20 million flood project, you expect it to work,” he said at the time.

Meanwhile, in the Famagusta district, the Paralimni and Deryneia municipality said work is ongoing to “solve problems on the road network” after the weekend’s storms, adding that they had “intervened immediately” on Sunday when storms hit.

It called on those suffering from problems related to the storms to call either 23819397 or 99428474 to report their issues.