Flood mitigation measures for 4 other MRT locations by April
Rail operator SMRT will introduce flood prevention measures at four other locations by April, in a move to avert a repeat of last October's flood incident at Bishan MRT station.
This will take place at the tunnel portals near the Lavender, Redhill, Kembangan and Expo stations on the East-West Line, said its building and services director Siu Yow Wee yesterday.
The portals are where above-ground tracks go into underground tunnels.
The first station to get the new system was Bishan MRT station, which was the site of the Oct 7 incident that led to the shutdown of a large section of the North-South Line for more than 14 hours. It affected about 231,000 commuters.
The shutdown was prompted by the flooding in the tunnel between Bishan and Braddell MRT stations, due to the poor maintenance of an anti-flooding water pump system.
Mr Siu said that the new measures include adding more float switches and shifting pump control panels - used to manually activate the water pumps - to areas accessible to maintenance staff even when trains are in service.
The number of float switches - which activate the rain water pumps when water levels rise too high - was increased from five to eight at the Bishan storm water reservoir.
SMRT paid about $2 million for these and other repair works following October's flooding incident.
With the relocation of the pump control panels, staff can reach them faster. They would previously have to access the track to use the panels, and this could take up to 20 minutes, Mr Siu said.
These extra measures are part of SMRT's overall efforts to enhance its flood-prevention efforts, said Mr Siu.
These include outsourcing the maintenance of water pumps to the system's manufacturer, water technology provider Xylem.
The move leaves SMRT to take on a supervisory role.
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