Kolkata: Incessant overnight downpour in Kolkata and its adjacent southern Bengal districts since Friday evening have sent public life for a toss in the city and its adjacent areas. The rains have resulted in heavy water logging in almost all parts of the city throwing municipal authorities and the traffic department of the Kolkata police into a tizzy.
Officials at the regional Met office said that the city received about 154 mm of rainfall in the past 24 hours till 11.30 am on Saturday. They explained that a deep depression over Andhra Pradesh which is moving in a north-easterly direction is causing the rain and the situation is unlikely to improve in the next 24 hours with coastal and Gangetic West Bengal likely to bear the maximum brunt. Regional Met office director GC Debnath, however, confirmed that the weather will drastically improve from the second half of Sunday. "The cyclonic formation has weakened considerably and this will result in improvement in weather from Sunday. But we have extended the heavy rainfall warning for another day for some of the coastal and central Bengal districts," he said.
Parts of a four-storey house in the Posta area of North Kolkata collapsed early this morning on account of the rains resulting in the death of one person. Another house collapse was reported from the Sukia Street area but no casualties took place there. The city's traffic police department confirmed having cleared roads from uprooted trees in at least five places.
Train services in both Howrah and Sealdah divisions have been affected and authorities of both the Eastern and South Eastern railways confirmed local and long distance train services have taken a hit on account of water logging on railway tracks. Heavy rains in coastal Andhra Pradesh and Orissa over the past few days have severely affected log distance railway services in the South Eastern Railway division. Soumitra Majumder, spokesperson for SE Railway, said that most south-bound trains originating from Howrah and vice versa have either been cancelled or diverted or rescheduled. "Trains are running abnormally late in this region and although water levels have started receding in some areas, the cascading effect of this will require a few more days to restore normalcy," he added.
Heavy rainfall in the adjacent state of Jharkhand has compelled the Damodar Valley Corporation to release over 47,000 cusecs of water from its various reservoirs on Saturday morning. State government officials maintained that this has enhanced apprehensions of further flooding of some of the districts like Howrah, Hooghly, Burdwan, East and West Midnapore which lie in the downstream areas of some of the major rivers of Bengal.
Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who is currently touring North Bengal, is learnt to have spoken to state Municipal Affairs minister Firhad Hakim and instructed him to take all necessary steps to ensure that normalcy is restored as quickly as possible.
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