The rainy Thursday morning kept the rescue services busy in Helsinki.
By 04:00 in the morning, the Helsinki rescue service had received 16 damage control calls due to rainwater.
The heavy, but luckily, brief rainfall caused water to leak into properties and parking garages.
According to the Helsinki Rescue Department, rainwater pipes burst due to heavy rain at least in the Citycenter shopping mall, perhaps better known among locals as Makkaratalo (The Sausage House).
In Makkaratalo, water entered the lift lobby and the lift shafts. The lifts were out of service at least in the morning. The stores, however, were allowed to remain open but warning signs for wet floors were sprinkled across the pathways.
The University of Helsinki metro station was closed around 05:00 in the morning because of water spilling into the station. There was about a centimeter of water at the entrance to the station, noted the Helsinki Regional Transport Authority (HSL). The station was left unopened for safety reasons, including slippery floors and dampness near electrical equipment.
It was re-opened just before 09:00.
Between 03:30 and 04:30 in the morning, 26 millimeters of water fell in Kaisaniemi during the hour, said Tuukka Keränen, the meteorologist on duty at the Finnish Meteorological Institute. In total, 27 millimeters of rain fell in the last six hours, so almost all the rain fell within one hour.
