Wichit Police first reported the underpass closed to traffic just after 9am, but by that time long traffic tailbacks were already stretching back from the entrances to the tunnel.
Traffic was redirected to travel overground past the underpass while workers from the Phuket Highways Office were called in to fix the problem.
By about 11am workers had a new pump, provided by the Phuket Provincial Administrative Organisation (PPAO), in the tunnel and were working on extracting the failed pump and replacing it with the functional one.
Wichit Police later confirmed that the pump transplant was successful and that traffic was allowed to pass through the underpass at about 2:20pm.
The pump failure in the underpass today follows repeated failures last year, which spurred a huge backlash of negative comments from islanders over officials’ inability to keep the pumps in the tunnel functioning.
Following yet another critical failure in July last year, Phuket MP Chalermpong Saengdee noted that all three pumps in the underpass had repeatedly failed.
In response to that pump failure, a pump provided by the PPAO was installed on site, but was unable to cope with the volume of water flowing into the underpass with each heavy downpour.
That failure followed yet another critical failure in May, to which Wongsakorn ‘Bank’ Chanakit ‒ at that time the Bhumjaithai Party candidate canvassing for election for Phuket District 2 ‒ claimed that the essential safety equipment in the underpass, including the pumps, had never had been fully maintained, and never had a full overhaul.
By July last year, Phuket MP Somchart Techathavorncharoen confirmed that a contractor, Grundfos (Thailand) Co Ltd, had been hired through a B1.8 million contract to install a Phuket-worthy pump in the underpass.
Grundfos, a major pump provider, had until Oct 14, 2023 to complete installing the new pump. With no reports of flooding in the underpass since last October, the pump was presumed to be working well and coping with Phuket downpours.
However, today, eight months later, the pump has failed again.