An untimely cloudburst and consequent rains left at least ten people dead in and around Kolkata which in the night intervening Monday and Tuesday witnessed "worst of its kind" rains in recorded history, weather experts said.
While anything above 100 mm of rains in a concentrated area are usually considered to be a result of cloudburst many pockets of Kolkata witnessed more than 250 mm of rains. The areas that witnessed heavy rains are Ultadanga in northern Kolkata, Topsia in Central part of the city and up market areas down south like Ballygunge, Rashbehari — near Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's residence — and Alipore, weather office said.
Most of Tuesday's victims died due to electrocution, police said. Water had entered Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's house too, she said.
I heard some people have died due to electrocution. It is so unfortunate that people have lost their lives, said Banerjee, asking the Calcutta Electric Supply Corporation Limited (CESC Ltd) to provide jobs to the family members of the deceased. "Even our houses are submerged; we are all suffering. I am feeling so bad for the Pujo pandals as well… is this not the duty of the CESC to be more mindful? ... They will do business here, but not modernise here? They should send people to the field and fix this," the Chief Minister said.
As Kolkata immersed itself in Durga Puja celebrations, heavy rains submerged large parts of the city with many areas coming under waist-deep water. The high tide in the Hooghly River worsened the matter as water could not be pumped out with the result that most part of the eastern metro remaining under water till late in the evening and large parts of the city witnessing a bandh-like situation with almost entire public transport coming to a standstill save the suburban trains. The metro railways plied far and few between.
As the downpour, continued for several hours, areas like Garia Kamdahari, Jodhpur Park, Kalighat, Rashbehari, Ballygunge, Alipore, Topsia, Tiljala, Salt Lake Sector V, Ultadanga literally went under water.
Even as political slugfest ensued with the Opposition parties slamming the Trinamool Congress Government for the water logging, the Chief Minister, blamed it on sudden unprecedented cloudburst, overwhelming the city's
infrastructure. Urging the leaders to refrain from mudslinging Banerjee said it was time to work together to get over the crisis.
"We have to come forward together to help the people as many houses are under water, it is not time to pass blames," she said reminding how "tirelessly we have been working for the past several months to face such eventuality." Kolkata Mayor Firhad Hakim said that the weather forecast was for about
100-120 mm of rain whereas in many areas it went
beyond 200 mm.
Opposition BJP however accused the TMC-led Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) of corruption and inefficiency, which had led to a poor drainage system. Ministers Chandrima Bhattacharya and Shashi Panja, however
wondered what the BJP had to say about Mumbai which was governed by the
saffron outfit.
Overnight torrential rain affected normal work at the Calcutta High Court on Tuesday owing to waterlogged streets and erratic internet network due to the deluge in the city.
The secretaries of the three associations of lawyers at the high court jointly wrote to the Acting Chief Justice requesting that the Judges take up only those matters where all the parties to the proceedings are present.
The Calcutta High Court Bar Association, Bar Library Club and the Incorporated Law Society of Calcutta also requested that the matters which cannot be taken
up due to the absence of any of the parties to the proceedings may retain their position in the list for hearing of petitions.
Uday Shankar Chatterjee, a practising lawyer at the high court, said that he could not reach owing to the heavy waterlogging of roads and had to return home midway.
"There was more than knee-deep water on the roads and fearing that my car might get stuck, I returned," he said.
Advocate Arun Kumar Mohanty said that the situation was so bad that he could not go to court.
"My juniors also could not reach court owing to the waterlogging," he said.
Several high court staff also could not go to work owing to lack of buses and suburban trains, services of which were affected owing to the downpour.