Inquiry into city underpass flood

The Broadway underpass was under 20ft of water at one stage

A special inquiry is to examine how a Belfast city centre underpass became submerged during heavy rain.

An emergency meeting of the Regional Development Committee was told independent consultants would examine what had happened.

They will look at the intensity of the rainfall, the cause of the flooding the Broadway underpass design and construction standards.

Heavy rain on Saturday caused chaos across Northern Ireland.

Roads Service chief executive Geoff Allister said: "I will be appointing, hopefully later this week, a firm of independent consultants to carry out an investigation on our behalf.

"These will be consultants who have not been involved in any way with the work to date on the (underpass) contract.

"And the sorts of things I want them to look at will be the whole background, intensity of the rainfall, to establish clearly the cause of the flooding, to look at the design and to look at the construction standards."

Many roads had to be closed and some homes evacuated due to the flooding.

The Stormont committee is questioning officials from the Rivers Agency, Roads Service and Northern Ireland Water.

The flooded underpass's citybound and countrybound carriageways were re-opened on Tuesday.

It had completely filled with water after a nearby river burst its banks.

The Regional Development Committee's chair, Fred Cobain, said plans must be made to reduce disruption in the future.

"We have to realise that it appears that torrential rain is going to occur on a more regular basis - the weekend was no freak occurrence.

"This means we have to introduce measures to adapt to this situation. New strategies are needed to ensure that flash flooding is minimised and that a co-ordinated emergency strategy is in place to cope with the consequences of flooding," he said.

"I urge the Executive to get to grips with the twin issues of improving our response to flooding and adapting our environmental and planning strategies to deal with increased rain in the future."

The executive is making £1,000 available to every flooded home.

People whose homes have been damaged can contact an emergency helpline on 0800 707 6965.

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Laura Lyons reports on the re-opening of the Westlink underpass