Cyclone batters Bengal

32 killed; over one lakh hit; gusty winds leave a trail of devastation

 
The death toll is likely to increase as the extent of the destruction in South 24 Parganas and East Midnapore districts – which have borne the brunt of the cyclone’s fury – are yet to be determined.

Army and BSF jawans, assisted by police and fire brigade personnel, have set off for the hardest hit regions, state Finance Minister Asim Dasgupta told newspersons here. He added that more than one lakh people from the affected districts have so far been removed to safer areas.

Train and air services, which remained completely paralysed for several hours during the day, limped back to normal in the evening following improvement in conditions.

Fierce winds with speeds up of to 100 km/hr lashed the coast since morning, uprooting several trees, power and telephone posts. As a result, communication with distant areas have been snapped and several towns and villages have plunged into darkness, the minister said.

Meanwhile, reports from the Alipore Meteorological office here said the cyclone was maintaining an erratic course. Lying centred around 75 kms northeast of Kolkata, the gale started moving towards North Bengal at 5 pm, the department said.

“However, the cyclone appeared substantially weaker in the evening and so, when it hits parts of North Bengal late Monday night or early Tuesday, there will be widespread rain and the wind speed will be about 40 to 45 km/hr,” Met office director G C Debnath said.

He said five of the dead are from Kolkata, while 11 from South 24 Parganas district have fallen victim to the cyclone.

Five from Howrah district, four from Hooghly district and one from Bankura district are also among the dead. The deaths seem to have resulted from house and wall collapses and electrocution.

In November 2007, West Bengal managed to avert a similar damage from cyclone Sidr.

The cyclone skirted off to neighbouring Bangladesh to affect a large part of its coastline.

It killed 3,500 people and displaced nearly 2 million in the country. Heavy rains inundated the streets of Kolkata, toppling trees and snapping communication lines. Television footages showed rescue workers struggling to save a man from his car submerged in rainwater.

“At least 45 trees have been uprooted in the city itself that led to five deaths,” Dasgupta said. The Army, he said, was moving into Sandeshkhali and Hingalganj in North 24 Parganas and at Sagardwip, Gosaba and Patharpratima in South 24 Parganas.

Hundreds of thousands of thatched houses collapsed in the storm which also breached 100 irrigation embankments. Union Railways Minister Mamata Banerjee, who cancelled her scheduled departure for Delhi in view of the cyclone, called Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee for urgent deployment of the Army in consultation with Defence Minister A K Antony. Accordingly, Mukherjee briefed Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee for engaging the Army in rescue and relief operations.

Bhattacharjee, who reviewed the situation during a high-level meeting at the state secretariat here, directed four ministers to rush to the districts to oversee the efforts of the disaster management teams working under the district magistrates. “The situation is very grave, countless families have been displaced, especially in the Sundarbans,” said Kanti Ganguly, state Minister.

More than 30,000 people had been evacuated in the Sundarbans area as heavy rains triggered by the cyclone burst mud embankments in several areas inundating villages with sea water.

“We have reports of sea surge in Digha and Sankarpur (two popular sea resorts). We also have heard of houses being damaged,” C G Lama, a senior West Bengal government official said.

The storm surge is said to have washed away dozens of shrimp farms and also flooded rice fields.

At least 14 flights at Dum Dum International airport were either rescheduled or diverted to other locations.

Several long distance trains in the Eastern and Southeastern sectors and dozens of local trains were cancelled in the Howrah and Sealdah divisions.

According to a Railway official, the disruption was caused by flooding of tracks and snapping of power cables.

While the forest department has been asked to clear the collapsed trees from Kolkata’s roads, dry food packets, 30,000 pouches of drinking water along with one lakh pieces of tarpaulin have been despatched to the affected areas, Dasgupta said.