Rain too strong for Lija’s newly laid road

Rain has proven to be too strong for the newly resurfaced Naxxar Road in Lija as rescuers this morning intervened to help pull out a Mistsubish Pajero Jr that fell in a hole after the road caved in.

Pictures posted on Facebook by motorists showed the car stuck in a hole.

The Lija cemetery roundabout was opened recently after some 200 metres of the road from the roundabout towards Lija Cemetery was dug up for pipes to be laid as part of the flood relief project.

The area had been afflicted by rainwater flooding and sewage overflows for years.

The bad weather lashing the islands also led to some distress for an elderly woman in Mosta, who was trapped inside her apartment after part of the building collapsed.

At around 7:00am, the woman heard a loud noise outside her basement apartment. She discovered that one balcony, two floors up, had collapsed and brought a lower balcony down with it. As a result, her front door was blocked.

A Rapid Intervention Unit squad as well as the civil protection department and police officers were on site to help the woman out of her apartment. She was unharmed and did not require the assistance of the medical team, also on site.