A large part of Kolkata and Howrah literally went under water after nonstop rains lashed the City of Joy for the past 24 hours. The news from the weather office was not encouraging either with the weather man predicting more such rains in the next 24 hours or so, sources said.
South-Eastern Railways CPRO Sanjay Ghosh said many trains had to be cancelled and many others had to be terminated at Santragachi Station some 15 km downstream as the Railway car shed was completely waterlogged and “plying of electric train in such situation is risky.”
About 54 trains had to be cancelled as the automatic relay route link system had crumbled forcing the Railways to work manually and only red signals were on, sources said.
The roads in eastern metropolis were also water-logged while huge uprooted trees further complicated the situation. Trees were uprooted ad Gariahat, lake Market and other areas causing traffic snarls.
Most of prominent thoroughfares were under water, Kolkata Corporation sources who refused to speak publicly in the absence of Mayor Sovan Chatterjee who was currently visiting Germany said. “Though pumps have been deployed the high tide in Hooghly has worsened the matter with the River flowing about two feet higher than the drainage canals.”
Many houses in South and eastern Kolkata were water-logged sources said. Kolkata witnessed more than 135 mm of rain in the past 24 hours and was expected to receive more rains on Wednesday.
In the districts matters were worsened by the release of water by the Damodar Valley Corporation from Durgapur and other barrages. About 52,000 cusecs of water had been released and an additional 15-20,000 cusecs were likely to be released on Tuesday night, sources said adding any further release of water would inundate large parts of Howrah, Hooghly, Burdwan and Bankura.
Meanwhile, State Irrigation Minister Rajiv Banerjee on Tuesday wrote to DVC to stop release of further water, sources said.