The Lusaka City Council has deployed seven fire trucks to pump out water from flooded residential compounds.

In an interview with News Diggers, Tuesday, Lusaka Mayor Wilson Kalumba said the trucks would be deployed to areas which needed them most.

“First of all we have fire trucks seven fire trucks. So we will only deploy them where we have floods, serious floods that require something. Our understanding is that we need to assign them to areas. But as usual, floods don’t happen everywhere. They happen in different places at different times. So will deploy them as demands props up,” Kalumba said.

Asked where the water was being taken, Kalumba said; “The water that is being taken from these compounds is being taken for disposal. What is important is for the water not to be there.”

When asked if the fire trucks could survive the Lusaka terrain in view of the fact that the Copperbelt recorded an incident in which a fire truck got stuck in mud, Kalumba said the question was irrelevant.

“They got stuck on the Copperbelt you want to ask about Lusaka whats that. There are also ditches but where they stuck that’s the question. That question is irrelevant. I think you can ask Kitwe Council what they are going to do about it. In Lusaka, when that happens here then you can ask me,” he said.

And Kalumba said the Bombay project was the long term solution to floods.

The Bombay project is the long term solution, it starts from somewhere from Kamwala South, though Evelyn Hone College to Mazyopa compound, and is still in construction, it is not a small thing, it is big and as wide as two road lanes, it will take time,” said Kalumba.