Two towns under water

A boat wades through a waterlogged lane of Anandanagar in ward five of
Alipurduar municipality on Wednesday. Picture by Anirban Choudhury

TT, June 10: Pre-monsoon rainfall that occurred across north Bengal in the past 24 hours left many areas in Jalpaiguri and Alipurduar districts waterlogged.

In Alipurduar, the municipality brought in four boats for six wards that were under four to five feet of water.

The water level started receding from this afternoon.

The rain, which occurred because of an upper air trough in the sub-Himalayan Bengal region, however, brought down the temperature in Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri and Cooch Behar districts by around 5 degrees Celsius.

The mercury had been hovering around 35 degrees Celcius in these places for the past few days.

According to the Met department, Alipurduar received 296.32mm rainfall in the past 24 hours, from 8.30am yesterday, - the highest the town has recorded in 24 hours in the past 10 years.

In July 2003, Alipurduar had received 356mm rain in 24 hours.

Among the places in the region, which received high rainfall is Barobisha that got 202.6mm of rain. Jalpaiguri recorded 157.0mm. At Falakata, the rainfall recorded was 150.0mm. Cooch Behar received 116.8mm and Mathabhanga 108.2mm. Bagdogra got 90.0mm of rain, Gangtok received 39.0mm and Champasari in Siliguri got 20.0mm of rain.

In Alipurduar, almost all 20 wards were inundated and several people had to trudge through knee-deep, and even waist-deep, water in some places.

The wards that were under water include 1, 5, 8, 9,11,14, 15, 16, 18 and 20. Many students could not go to school and office goers left homes late.

"The drainage system in Alipurduar is so poor that after one day's rain, the town is waterlogged. The civic body is 67 years old but unfortunately, no proper drainage system has been developed. People are facing the same problem time and again. Monsoon is approaching and we apprehend that there will be similar incidents of waterlogging," Larry Bose, secretary of Alipurduar Abhibhabok Mancha, an apolitical social organisation, said.

"Not a single pump set was brought in by the civic authorities to drain out water from inundated streets and lanes," he added.

Ashish Dutta, the chairman of the municipality, said: "I have visited all the wards where waterlogging was reported. It is true that thousands of people have faced problems. We are helping them with relief. It rained almost 300mm, which is why there has been such wagerlogging. As far as the issue of drainage system is concerned, we will look into it soon."

In Jalpaiguri, waterlogging was reported from at least nine of the 20 wards. Areas like Pandapara, Surfer More, Mahamayapara, Congresspara and Station More were inundated.

"Waterlogging has become an annual problem. We have been hearing lengthy commitments from representatives of the municipality but no proper drainage system has been developed," Bablu Das, a Pandapara resident, said.

Mohan Bose, the Jalpaiguri civic chief, said funds were needed to complete the drainage network. "We have sent the project to the state and the state will forward it to the Centre seeking for funds," he said.

Siliguri received less rainfall than Jalpaiguri, Cooch Behar and Alipurduar and no waterlogging was reported.

The downpour has led to rise in water levels in the Teesta, Jaldhaka and Mujnai. Officials of North Bengal Flood Control Commission said they had issued a yellow (primary) alert in unprotected areas on both banks of these rivers.

Today, most of the region was overcast and the maximum temperature was below 30 degrees Celsius in Jalpaiguri, Siliguri, Alipurduar and Cooch Behar.

"There is an alert of moderate to heavy rainfall in sub-Himalayan Bengal during the next two-three days. In some places, it might rain even around 250mm in the next 24 hours," said an IMD source.