It did not rain that heavily in Kolkata on Wednesday, but a major part of the city and its suburbs remained waterlogged till late in the evening.
Floods, rising death toll, scarcity of food and drinking water have crippled nation
KOLKATA: It did not rain that heavily in Kolkata on Wednesday, but a major part of the city and its suburbs remained waterlogged till late in the evening. Though the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) operated all its 350 pumping stations to release the flood water, the situation remained the same.
Three more persons died in Kolkata and neighbouring North Parganas on Wednesday, taking the death toll to 11.
KMC officials claimed that the sewerage channels in different corners of the city were blocked because of accumulation of waste material. However, they failed to come up with a suitable explanation to why no steps were taken to clear the channels before the monsoon.
Boats have become the only means of transportation in Kolkata. They are being used to supply dry food and drinking water in large parts of north Kolkata, especially in Ahmerst Steet and Sukhia Street areas where ground floor residents are living with murky rainwater inside their rooms.
There is no electricity in several areas of the city. Even emergency services were not spared, with a nursing home in north Kolkata having to suspend surgery and use a generator to keep life support systems operational. “We called up the power utility CESC repeatedly on Tuesday but they did not respond to our calls. Power supply was restored after 26 hours on Wednesday morning,” said Pronoy Majumdar, manager of the nursing home.
Elsewhere, there were fire mishaps in electricity metres, transformer snags and snapping of overhead wires. Fire brigade officials said at least 20 transformers were became defunct, and several are yet to be repaired.
At New Ballygunge in south Kolkata, a lorry driver lost control on an inundated road on Tuesday night and hit a transformer. “Power supply still has not been restored,” a resident of the area said on Wednesday evening.
Equally worse was the condition of the Kolkata-adjacent suburbs. Local train service was hit causing immense difficulties to commuters.
Several long-distance trains were either cancelled or delayed. According to a statement issued by the Eastern Railway, the Howrah yards and EMU car sheds were inundated . The circular railway system in Kolkata was also affected. However, flight schedules at the national and international airports in Kolkata remained normal.
Examinations scheduled on Wednesday have been postponed by all the universities.
KMC mayor Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharjee on Wednesday accepted the onus of the severe condition of Kolkata following the rains.
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