Rains inundate city areas again
Wednesday morning raised hopes among the Kolkatans of respite from the heavy downpour since Sunday. However, by afternoon, all hopes were dashed as heavy rains again lashed the city, leaving many areas waterlogged. Despite mayor Sovan Chatterjee’s tall claims, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) failed to save the city from the scourge of waterlogging. Adding to the citizens’ woes, Regional Meteorological Centre, Alipore, issued a warning that Kolkata and its neighbourhood and entire Gangetic South Bengal will witness heavy downpour in the next 24 hours. The city and its adjoining areas received over 20 mm of rainfall on Wednesday.
“We have issued an emergency warning that heavy rain will occur over Kolkata and its neighbourhood and all the districts of Gangetic West Bengal during the next 24 hours. Heavy rain may occur at isolated places over Burdwan, Birbhum, Bankura and Murshidabad districts of Gangetic West Bengal and Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri, Coochbehar, Malda and (North+South) Dinajpur districts of Sub-Himalayan West Bengal till noon on Thursday,” Met director G.C. Debnath said.
According to Mr Debnath, southwest monsoon is active over Gangetic West Bengal and Tuesday’s trough low pressure from North Bay to East Central Bay persists. Further, the cyclonic circulation over Jharkhand and adjoining areas now lies over Bihar and adjoining Jharkhand extending upto 4.5 km above sea level. “This has resulted in the widespread rainfall occuring over Gangetic West Bengal and scattered rainfall over Sub-Himalayan West Bengal and Sikkim,” Mr Debnath added.
The heavy rains which lashed the city at around 4 pm left major areas like Central Avenue, Amherst Street, Salt Lake Sector V, VIP Road, Russel Street, Southern Avenue, Behala, Topsia, Tiljala and Alipore inundated.“Due to this continuous rain, we are facing tremendous difficulty to come to office,” Niladri Chatterjee, an employee of an IT company in Sector V said.
Meanwhile, the officials of the KMC refused to accept the reports of waterlogging. “The continuous downpour is resulting in waterlogging, but it is being drained out within no time,” Member Mayor-in-Council Rajib Deb said.
Many complained that the Bidhannagar Municipality had failed to drain out water. Further, the ongoing East West Metro Corridor project also brought the traffic at Karunamoyee, Bikash Bhavan, City Centre to a standstill.
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