The government of HCMC expects to control flooding in inner-city areas by 2020 and the suburbs afterwards, the HCMC Steering Center for the Urban Flood Control Program (SCFC) said Wednesday.

The projection came one day after heavy rain submerged 62 sites in the city. Tuesday saw the heaviest downpour since 2008 with rainfalls recorded at 142 mm at An Lac station, said Do Tan Long, head of the water drainage department at the center.

Long told reporters on September 16 that high tides worsened the flooding situation on Tuesday with tides reaching 1.4 meters high at Binh Trieu station. The torrential rain coupled with high tides flooded many roads in districts 2, 6 and Binh Thanh in peak hour, with many parts nearly one meter under water.

Long said there are many low-lying areas in HCMC, so heavy rain plus high tides would submerge these areas because the city’s current drainage system could not withstand such high rainfalls plus high tides.

He introduced many measures to ease flooding from 2016, including construction of embankments and flood control reservoirs, and upgrade of the drainage system.

As planned, the city will be able to solve flooding for 100 square kilometers in the downtown area in the period of 2016-2020 and 550 square kilometers afterwards for districts 5, 9, 12 and Thu Duc. After 2020, the flood control plan will be implemented in the outlying districts like Cu Chi, Nha Be and Can Gio, Long said.

Regarding the drainage system, the city’s largest drainage system could withstand rainfalls of 85.3 mm for three hours and smaller sewers could bear 75.8 mm plus tides of 1.3 meters high as envisaged in the master drainage plan for the city until 2020 approved by the Prime Minister in 2001.

Therefore, with 63% of the city area being less than 1.5 meters high, many low-lying areas including districts 5, 6, 8 and Binh Thanh are flood-prone.