Millions of litres of water flood Sydney’s Metro tunnels
Workers walk in the underground section of Ho Chi Minh City's Metro Line 1. Photo by VnExpress/Huu Khoa. Sketched by the Pan Pacific Agency.
SYDNEY, Feb 11, 2020, SMH. Several hundred metres of Sydney’s Metro remain under water, with drainage pumps in the underground tunnels unable to cope with the torrent of rainfall dumped on the city. A new image understood to be of the inundated network reveals millions of litres of brown storm water sitting at platform height, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.
The flooding occurred in the decade-old tunnel between North Ryde and Chatswood, which was retro-fitted during construction of the new, multi-billion dollar Metro.
While the 15 kilometres of new Metro tunnelling features waterproof gaskets that prevent flooding, the old tunnel relies on pumps to get rid of water that seeps into the network.
The Herald understands these pumps have not malfunctioned, but could not deal with the volume of water that fell on Sydney over the weekend, raising questions about the network’s future reliability.
A Transport for NSW spokesman said the tunnels had flooded in the past, delaying old Sydney Trains services.
The spokesman said more pumping equipment had been deployed to the tunnels, with more than a million litres pumped out on Monday.
Close to 400mm of rain fell over Sydney in four days to Monday morning, more water than Melbourne received for all of 2019.
Buses have had to replace Metro services between Chatswood and Macquarie Park since the weekend. It is understood the Metro will resume in coming days, but there is no official time estimate yet.
Engineers and technicians were said to be working “around the clock” to get the water out.
Saturday and Sunday’s rainfall wreaked havoc on Sydney’s public transport system, with several train services cancelled.
A small landslide near Leura on Sunday afternoon further disrupted the Blue Mountains line, with parts already destroyed from the summer’s horrific bushfires.
Acting Transport Minister Paul Toole earlier this month said it would be “months” before the fire-damaged part of the Blue Mountains line would reopen.
Signal boxes and thousands of kilometres of signal wiring are being replaced, with last weekend’s storms expected to hamper recovery efforts.
Warragamba dam has risen by the equivalent of 150,000 swimming pools.
Infrastructure was also damaged on the Central Coast and Newcastle line, with delays to several services north of Sydney.
Meanwhile half a dozen roads remain closed across Sydney, including North Rocks Road in North Parramatta, as well as the Windsor and Yarramundi bridges.
Sydney’s inner west light rail was also affected by flooding.
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