PENANG – Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad (Malaysia Airports) is confident that the latest enhancement to its flash flood mitigation system will further improve the situation at Penang International Airport (PIA) during heavy rain and thunderstorm. The latest enhancement takes the form of the construction of two open drains at the inner lane of the kerbside area, which will drain out faster overflowing water from the monsoon drain located underneath the kerbside. This enhancement was completed at the end of December 2015.
Previously Malaysia Airports had installed and constructed an On-Site Detention (OSD) tank with a volume size of 530 m3 together with its other components such as collection sump and catch pits. This was completed in July 2015. As a result of this, the incident of flash flooding at PIA had improved considerably whereby excess water is drained out within 30 minutes during heavy rains in the past six months.
Nevertheless, recent incidents had also shown that while the situation at the outer lane of the kerbside had significantly improved, there was still excess water at the inner lane. As such, the construction of these two new open drains is meant to address the issue.
PIA had implemented these enhancement and upgrading works in order to overcome the inconvenience and discomfort arising from the overflowing of water from Sungai Nipah and Sungai Tiram, into the arrival kerbside area at the terminal and roads at the airport during heavy rain and thunderstorm.
Malaysia Airports is also working closely with other relevant parties to ensure that proper drainage for the entire area is also looked into, including the silting (the removal of debris, sand and silt) of all the drainage as a solution to contain the excess water flow from the higher surrounding areas, especially during the heavy rain and high tide.