With the start of the rainy season less than one month away, teams are spreading out across the metropolitan area to unclog scores of storm drains that have become blocked with sediment and garbage.
According to water utility SIAPA, up until this week workers had intervened in more than 5,000 drains, extracting 4,410 cubic meters of sediment.
Special attention is being given to the city’s 43 pasos a desnivel (underground tunnels) that frequently become inundated during heavy storms in the June to September rainy season. SIAPA is also hurrying to finish infrastructure work on the open-air drain (canal) on Avenida Patria, where it crosses Avenida Americas, in order to prevent a repeat of last year’s flooding of Plaza Patria.