Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday slammed the Centre for creating a "man-made" flood in Bengal even as she complained how the Damodar Valley Corporation had released huge amount of water inundating several districts of South Bengal.

Banerjee who travelled extensively the Hooghly district said how, "the Centre is responsible for this man made flood I have repeatedly told them for dredging the river bed instead of doing that they release water when the barrages in Jharkhand brim over … this time they have released 3.5 lakh cusecs of water which is unprecedented this is clearly a man made flood … the lower regions of Hooghly, Howrah and Burdwan are going under water due to this."

Many areas of Howrah, Hooghly, East and West Midnapore districts had been flooded following the release of water by DVC. The worst-affected blocks are Amta and Udaynarayanpur in Howrah, Pursura in Hooghly, Ghatal in West Midnapore and Panskura in East Midnapore, sources said.

Eastern parts of India including Bengal and Jharkhand had been witnessing heavy rains for the past one week or so leading to the rivers and barrages in the higher regions in Jharkhand to brim over. As a result the DVC which controls a network of dams released 3.5 lakh cusec of water.

Though the rains had stopped on Wednesday the waters continued to flood the Bengal districts. "I have requested the DVC to release water slowly when they 79 or 80 percent full … but they wait till the waters rich the danger level and then release them at once without warning they save their own States but inundate Bengal," an angry Chief Minister said.

Meanwhile, several thousand people had been shifted to the safer areas including schools and other government offices, Chief Advisor to Chief Minister Alapan Bandopadhyay said.