July’s heaviest rain floods Calcutta, kills one: Bay system triggers 100mm downpour in 24 hours, weather set to improve today

Bay system triggers 100mm downpour in 24 hours, weather set to improve today

A crowd waits for the Covid shot amid heavy rain outside a CMC health centre on Aurobindo Sarani around 12.30pm on Thursday.: Gautam Bose

Debraj Mitra, Monalisa Chaudhuri   |   TT  |  Calcutta   |   30.07.21: Almost incessant rainfall since Wednesday night submerged several parts of the city, damaged homes and led to at least one death because of suspected electrocution.

The weather in Calcutta is set to improve from the second half of Friday.

A 56-year-old man was reportedly electrocuted to death in a north Calcutta garage on Wednesday night. Police said Kashinath Jyoti used to live in the garage space on the ground floor of a three-storey residential building on Darpanarayan Tagore Street.

He was electrocuted around 9.15pm, when he was trying to roll down the shutter of the garage, the police said.

Two men survived electrocution at the Alipore chief judicial magistrate’s court on Thursday afternoon. The men — both law clerks — received electric shock while trying to wade through stagnant water in the court compound around 1.25pm, police said.

An eyewitness said some bystanders dragged them out of the water. Arijit Mukhopadhyay, 25 and Supratim Barik, 24, were rushed to a private hospital in Alipore. They were treated and discharged from the hospital.

Another man was injured after a portion of the top-floor balcony of a three-story house in the Girish Park area caved in on Thursday morning. The house stands on Kailash Kabiraj Street. Narendra Nath Jha, 45, was taken to a hospital from where he was discharged later in the day, the police said.

In the evening, a portion of the top floor of a three-storey residential building in Shib Narayan Das Lane in north Calcutta collapsed and a portion of a wall of the top floor of a three-storey building in Balaram Majumder Street, also in the north, caved in. No one was injured.

A tree was uprooted at the intersection of Park Street and Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Road around 10am. The tree brought down a signal post and a mesh of overhead wires along with it.

The Met office recorded over 100mm of rain in Alipore between 8.30pm on Wednesday and 8.30pm on Thursday, the most in 24 hours this July.

The rain was triggered by a low-pressure area that had formed over the north Bay of Bengal off the Bangladesh coast. The system intensified into a well-marked low-pressure area and was stationed over Bangladesh for most of Wednesday and the first half of Thursday.

It was moving westwards and was over the Bengal-Bangladesh border on Thursday evening.

“The system is set to head towards Jharkhand via Bengal. It would pass over North 24-Parganas, Burdwan, Birbhum and adjoining western districts of Bengal before moving through Deoghar, Dhanbad and Gaya,” said G.K. Das, director, India Meteorological Department, Calcutta.

The weather in Calcutta is set to improve from the second half of Friday. The sky is expected to remain cloudy and one or two spells of rain are likely. But the rain will not be non-stop like Thursday, said a Met official. The western districts of Bengal are likely to get heavy rain on Friday.

Under the influence of the system, the sky was cloudy in patches over Calcutta throughout Wednesday. But it’s real impact was felt from Wednesday evening. Multiple sharp spells of rain lashed the city since Wednesday night.

By the time most Calcuttans were out of their bed on Thursday, several low-lying areas were already under water.

As the day progressed, the roads became deserted and shops closed early. The number of vehicles also went considerably down in the second half of the day and those who stepped out had a trying time returning home.

Train services — only staff special trains are plying because of the Covid-19 curbs — between BBD Bag and Prinsep Ghat were stalled for a long time because of technical problems following the downpour.

Metro Railway services were unaffected but the passenger count was quite low, said an official.

July is usually the rainiest month of the year. But in the absence of rain-bearing systems over the Bay, the city had registered a rain deficit of around 25 percent till the third week of July. The latest downpour, however, wiped out the deficit, said a Met official.

“This was the first low-pressure area to have an impact over south Bengal this month,” Das said.