A heavy downpour during the morning rush hour yesterday brought traffic around the island to a halt, causing disruption and headaches.
Civil Protection Department director Peter Cordina said about 25 people were rescued from their cars in Birkirkara, Msida and Balzan and another 20 required similar assistance in the south of the island.
The main problem was that the downpour started when people had already left their homes.
Although nobody was hurt, Mr Cordina explained that CPD personnel put their own lives at risk to help others. In Balzan, rescuers had to tie themselves to ropes in order to get people out of cars.
The CPD asked the armed forces to help and the army deployed four trucks to help clear the roads. Soldiers assisted stranded vehicles and people in Marsa, Santa Venera, Birkirkara and Msida.
Mr Cordina had simple advice to give to people faced with such situations: drive slowly and with the car's headlights on, avoid areas which flood easily and if the car stalls in a dangerous area, get out of it as soon as possible before it gets carried away by the currents taking the driver and passengers with it.
A similar appeal was made by Patrick Rausi, the managing director of road assistance company RMF. "When your car stalls in a low lying area, get out immediately," he said, urging people to put "safety first".
He acknowledged that people were indeed playing it more safe and avoiding low lying areas, adding that the authorities were doing a good job in informing people of possible floods as early as possible. The down side of this is that this led to a lot of traffic accumulating in other areas, causing traffic jams and kilometres-long tailbacks. To make matters worse, quite a few cars broke down because of the rain.
In fact, Mr Rausi said RMF received over 200 calls for assistance from motorists in the span of two hours, five times the number of calls it usually receives. Traffic made it virtually impossible for the tow trucks to get to those requiring assistance.
He explained that apart from flooding, weather like yesterday's caused a vehicle's distributor cap to get wet, killing the engine. That was why people should drive slowly in the rain and avoid splashing water, which could lead to the engine stopping.
Mr Rausi also urged motorists to try and move to the side of the road once they realise that their car might be having problems and this in order to avoid causing accidents.
The recently inaugurated road leading to Siggiewi could not take yesterday's rainfall and was flooded. Contacted yesterday, a spokesman for the Roads Ministry said some people had abusively connected their flood water outflow to the drainage system, which was too much for the road, leading to a number of manhole covers coming off because of the pressure. The spokesman said other than that no significant problems were reported.
Despite the inconvenience caused to many, yesterday's rainfall was no record breaker and nothing compared to the flood that had brought the whole island to a standstill two years ago.
More than 50 millimetres of rain was measured in Valletta by midday, according to the Malta International Airport's Meteorological Office. Almost 46 millimetres were measured in Dingli, 41.2 millimetres in Luqa, 23.4 millimetres in Birkirkara, 56 millimetres in Kercem and 53.8 millimetres in Xewkija. An average of 43.4 millimetres of rain fell on the Maltese islands in 24 hours between Monday and yesterday.
Kenneth Chase, the forecaster on duty at the Met. Office, said yesterday's rainfall had been the highest since October 1996, when 43.5 millimetres of rain were measured in 24 hours. Over 100 millimetres of rain were measured on October 25, 1979 and 132 millimetres on October 26, 1939.
Mr Chase explained that the downpour was caused by a trough of low pressure which extended from eastern Algeria towards northern Libya and the central Mediterranean and was moving slowly eastwards.
The Infrastructure and Resources Ministry said the building of the Qormi-Marsa watercourse was vital to ease flooding which the areas suffered for years. A spokesman said seven kilometres of cleansing works in valleys during the summer months also helped to ease flooding in areas like Rabat, Attard and Wardija, adding that works were also being carried out at Karwija, limits of Kirkop.
The spokesman said officials of the Cleansing Services Department yesterday cleaned culverts in arterial roads. These culverts were covered with litter and debris, carried there by rainwater. He said rubble walls along arterial roads which had suffered damages were also being repaired but added that the situation was better than in previous years.
Infrastructure and Resources Minister Ninu Zammit carried out site inspections in valleys.
The storm also caused a number of power cuts in Marsa, Qormi, Santa Lucia, Ghaxaq, Gudja, Zejtun, Dingli, Ghajn Tuffieha, Salina and Wardija, Enemalta said. The supply was restored "soon after", it said.