Cars ended up in three to four feet in water and homes inundated causing extensive damage.

A teacher, Haji Hardi bin Haji Mohd Ali, 30, living at the luxury Tasek Lama Apartments said, “We were woken up by shouts as people living further up along the foot of the hill fled as the watery avalanche threatened them.

“Downstairs some car alarms went off as the vehicles became submerged. At first, we thought it was a robbery. But when we came down we saw water up to our waist.”

Cars passing by also became stuck in the thick mud washed down by the torrents.

Earlier, at about 12 midnight, it began to rain hard around the capital. There was deafening thunder as the tropical downpour intensified. It did not take long for hills along Jalan Tasek and Berangan to become fast racing rivers.

And, in a short space of two hours, a good part of Bandar Seri Begawan ended up under

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The normally placid Sungai Kiangge became a raging torrent. Roads became buried in knee deep mud.

	The 12-storey Tasek Lama Apartments consist of Block A & B housing 98 flats. Mostly, government teachers and other education officers live there. There are no security guards according to one resident, who did not like to be named, and there were 12 car break-ins last year.
A man struggles to move car from flood.
Moreover, one of the two lifts is not working. The one in service is small, barely fitting four persons.

Previously, both lifts were out of order for some time.
 

Meanwhile, the Meteorological Department could not be contacted as it is still too early in the day.

But judging from what happened, a record volume of rain had fallen on the Brunei capital during a