Flood cuts off north Bengal, more misery in store

TNN |  Aug 14, 2017, KOLKATA: North Bengal and the northeastern states got totally cut off from the rest of the country via rail and road on Sunday as flash floods and landslides sent tracks and roads under water. At least two people were killed in a Darjeeling landslide triggered by incessant rain. To make matters worse, the weather department predicts heavy to very heavy rain on Monday.

Thousands of passengers were left in the lurch as nearly all trains running towards north Bengal and the northeastern states got cancelled or short-terminated, stranding passengers at small stations without proper food, water and ventilation for several hours. Road connectivity between Bengal and the northeast was disrupted as floodwater inundated large portions of National Highway-31 between Cooch Behar and Toofangunj. Till late on Sunday, there was a breach in the embankment at Atreyee river; the Torsha, Raidak, Mansai and Kaljani rivers are flowing above the danger level in Cooch Behar and an alert has been sounded.

Eastern Railway cancelled eight important trains, including Darjeeling Mail and Padatik Express, that were scheduled to start from Sealdah on Sunday. Several trains, including the Darjeeling Mail and Padatik Express that left Sealdah on Saturday evening, were terminated at small stations for several hours before efforts began to bring them back to Kolkata. But that was not before passengers suffered for several hours and demonstrated before railway authorities at different stations. The tracks at New Jalpaiguri and Kishangunj stations were completely submerged in rainwater. The worst affected districts are Alipurduar, where all six blocks have been affected, Jalpaiguri, Cooch Behar and North Dinajpur. Power supply in Alipurduar, Jalpaiguri and Siliguri was disrupted. Because of heavy rainfall in Bhutan, the water level has increased in Jaldhaka river too. Fourteen lock gates of the Gajoldoba barrage on the Teesta were opened to release more water downstream.

Pradipta Choudhury, a bank official posted in Kolkata, was returning to his Siliguri home on the Darjeeling Mail but it stopped at Murarai, Birbhum, around 2am, four hours after it left Sealdah. After waiting for over six hours there, he finally took a Burdwan-Malda passenger train as Darjeeling Mail could not move further. With no train between Malda and New Jalpaiguri, he came down to National Highway-34 to catch a Siliguri-bound bus, but there was none. He hired a car for Rs 10,000 but the car refused to move any further at Dalkhola, around 4.30 pm, as the road ahead was inundated. Choudhury, like hundreds others, had to wade through the water to reach relatively drier ground, from where he was finally able to take public transport late on Sunday.

Like him, hundreds of passengers faced similar troubles. Alipurduar residents Somnath Chakraborty and Sumita Chakraborty, on board a Padatik Express, were stranded at Chatra station in Birbhum from 3am to 10am, before they took motorised vans to Rampurhat before coming back to Kolkata on a passenger train. "The AC was switched off by early morning and there was no water or food. The station shops charged Rs 25 for a cake that costs Rs 10 and water bottles were selling at double and triple the MRP," Chakraborty said.

Passengers were found waiting on the road to catch buses or cars, while others flocked the railway enquiry stalls to get information of trains. At various stations, the local administration reached out to passengers later in the evening with food and water.

The Met office has predicted heavy to very heavy rain for Darjeeling, Kalimpong, Cooch Behar, Jalpaiguri, Alipurduar, Malda, North and South Dinajpur on Monday and said the monsoon trough currently lies over the foothills of the Himalayas, which is triggering intense rain in north Bengal. "We expect this monsoon trough to cross over to Gangetic West Bengal by Tuesday. Once that happens, rainfall will decrease in north Bengal," said G K Das, director (weather), Regional Meteorological Centre, Kolkata.