NOVA.SCOTIA (CBC) - Residents of an apartment building in downtown Halifax blame a city pumping station located across the street for the latest flooding inside the basement parking garage.

The parking garage of Peninsula Place at the corner of Barrington and Inglis streets flooded Monday morning for the fourth time in seven months when three manholes nearby exploded and spilled a mixture of sewage and storm water into the garage.

Pumping trucks spent most of the day removing the sewage water. Sand bags were also put in place to prevent any further flooding from heavy rains expected from tropical storm Cristobal on Tuesday.

Several cars were severely damaged when the parking garage first flooded last January.

Tamer Khalil, who has lived at Peninsula Place for more than three years, lost a $130,000 BMW car in the first flood. He said the pumping station across the street on Inglis Street should be shut down.

"It's the city's problem because they built that thing and they don't know how it works," Khalil told CBC News. "So why don't they just close it down?"

But Halifax Mayor Peter Kelly says the cause of the incidents is still unknown.

"Unfortunately, I don't have an answer for them. There is not a clear reason or rationale for it," Kelly said.

"If there's problem here with anything that we find, then we'll have to deal with that. But to take it out, I don't think is in the works," he said.

The building manager was able to get almost all of the cars out of the basement before the water and sewage damaged them. One vehicle had to be towed because the owner is out of the country.

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