KARACHI, Aug 21: Bumper-to-bumper traffic continued to clog the roads and streets in the flooded neighbourhoods of Defence and Clifton on Monday piling misery upon the motorists and residents.

While the Clifton Flyover remained closed for vehicular traffic due to the ongoing work on the main drain in front of Karachi Club and Khayaban-i-Iqbal (Clifton Road), traffic backed up for miles on Mai Kulachi road and was heavy along the Korangi Road which connect the two vicinities.

The sealing off of the entry and exit points of Khayaban-i-Jami and Khyaban-i-Iqbal, which cross each other at the Schon Circle, had already led to severe traffic jams in the area.

As the sideways, lanes and streets remained choked with vehicles, the traffic police could do little to streamline the vehicular flow on the available entrances and exits. Meanwhile, cars kept going on wrong side of roads and streets turning the situation to worse.

The recent monsoon light to moderate rains exposed the limitations of grossly inadequate and ill-maintained drainage network in the city leaving many residential colonies flooded and turning a number of roads and streets into lakes.

Khayaban-i-Iqbal, better known as Clifton Road, remained submerged in knee-deep water for the fifth consecutive day and many cars continued to stuck.“There was a Clifton Road before the rain and there is a Clifton Road after the rain, but no one knows when the two will finally resemble,” a motorist remarked.

Inundation during the recent rain spells has become a recurring nightmare for residents of Gulshan-i-Faisal, a locality in the salubrious Bath Island, as the streets and lanes submerged in knee-deep water and the rainwater and sewage entered the underground water tanks of various houses.

Over 200 residents, including children and women, staged a demonstration on Monday evening on the main Clifton Road. Standing in the knee-deep water, the protesters chanted slogans against civic agencies.

Naib Nazim Nasreen Jalil and Saddar Town nazim visited the inundated locality along with the protesting residents, who were assured by her of all possible steps for draining out stagnant water.

Imran Samad, an affected resident, said that the area people had formed Bath Island Residents Association which organised the demonstration.

Residents from different parts of Defence and Clifton continued to make frantic calls to the offices of Dawn to tell of their miseries.

Many complained of traffic jams while the other deplored the civic agencies for “doing nothing to get the areas cleared of stagnant water.

Stinking sewage-mixed rainwater continued to play havoc with the streets and lanes in and around Clifton’s blocks 7 and 8.

Residents of the 23rd Street in Khayaban-i-Badbaan, DHA, said their locality had been inundated since the first spell of monsoon rains on July 30.

“We have constantly been reporting the matter to the authorities concerned for the past three weeks, but to no avail,” Ahmed Pirzada, said an irate resident.

Another resident, Maqbool, said the stagnant rainwater was getting more filthy and stinky with each passing day due to the overflowing sewage.

“Once supposed to be one of the neatest localities has become the dirtiest one, thanks to our efficient civic agencies,” he remarked.