Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong at the Nee Soon South Community Day 2010 - at the Lower Seletar Reservoir Park. -- ST PHOTO: NEO XIAOBIN
Building Learning Infrastructures
IT IS not realistic to expect Singapore to be completely flood-free given its tropical climate but the Government will continue to implement new drainage works to prevent widespread floods, said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Sunday.
In his first comments since the two flash floods this month, he said it would any attempt to wipe flood flooding her here would be very costly, requring huge spending and tracts of land.
'If you are going to do that, you will need huge tracts of land put aside for huge monsoon drains, which will be empty most of the time, (and) the infrastructure will cost a lot of money and it is not worth it,' he said at the opening of the new facilities at Lower Seletar Reservoir.
A more realistic objective, he added, is to prevent widespread and prolonged flooding, and limit the risk to lives and damage to property.
Assuring Singaporeans that the Government 'will continue to implement new drainage works, to improve the design of the drainage systems and deal with more intense storms', PM Lee said: 'But I don't think it is possible in Singapore to expect the place to be completely free of floods,' he said, as heavy downpours are very much part of the climate for an 'island in the tropics'.
He also stressed the need to have contingency plans for unusually heavy rain to ensure swift response in pinpointing the problem areas, dealing with them and 'putting them right', and ensuring that the massive floods of the scale that wreaked havoc in Orchard Road, Thomson Road, Bukit Timah and Tanjong Katong would not happen again.
'We have to learn from these episodes, do post-mortems, find out what happened, and upgrade our infrastructure and systems,' he said.
Building Learning Infrastructures
IT IS not realistic to expect Singapore to be completely flood-free given its tropical climate but the Government will continue to implement new drainage works to prevent widespread floods, said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Sunday.
In his first comments since the two flash floods this month, he said it would any attempt to wipe flood flooding her here would be very costly, requring huge spending and tracts of land.
'If you are going to do that, you will need huge tracts of land put aside for huge monsoon drains, which will be empty most of the time, (and) the infrastructure will cost a lot of money and it is not worth it,' he said at the opening of the new facilities at Lower Seletar Reservoir.
A more realistic objective, he added, is to prevent widespread and prolonged flooding, and limit the risk to lives and damage to property.
Assuring Singaporeans that the Government 'will continue to implement new drainage works, to improve the design of the drainage systems and deal with more intense storms', PM Lee said: 'But I don't think it is possible in Singapore to expect the place to be completely free of floods,' he said, as heavy downpours are very much part of the climate for an 'island in the tropics'.
He also stressed the need to have contingency plans for unusually heavy rain to ensure swift response in pinpointing the problem areas, dealing with them and 'putting them right', and ensuring that the massive floods of the scale that wreaked havoc in Orchard Road, Thomson Road, Bukit Timah and Tanjong Katong would not happen again.
'We have to learn from these episodes, do post-mortems, find out what happened, and upgrade our infrastructure and systems,' he said.
