Cyclone Remal impact: Widespread rainfall, red alert in two districts

 Even as the impact of Cyclone Remal’s landfall started subsiding, parts of West Bengal, including Kolkata, continued to receive heavy to very heavy rainfall on Monday.

Cyclone Remal impact: Widespread rainfall, red alert in two districts: Cyclone (Photo:IANS)

IANS | Kolkata | May 28, 2024 : Even as the impact of Cyclone Remal’s landfall started subsiding, parts of West Bengal, including Kolkata, continued to receive heavy to very heavy rainfall on Monday.

On the basis of predictions, a red alert continued to be in place in two adjacent districts in south Bengal — Nadia and Murshidabad. The weather office has also predicted the wind speed to be high in these two districts.

Similarly, orange alert continued in eight districts — Kolkata, North 24-Parganas, South 24-Parganas, West Burdwan, East Burdwan, Birbhum, Howrah and Hooghly. There are predictions of heavy rainfall in these districts.

All these districts are located in south Bengal.

However, at the same time, the weather office has given some good news about the further weakening of Remal, which has already lost much of its strength and has converted into a cyclonic storm in the latter part of the day.

The more it weakens in the day, the more the weather conditions in the state will improve accordingly but gradually. As per forecasts, the possibility of heavy rainfall since Tuesday morning is minimal.

In Kolkata, scattered rainfall was witnessed since Monday morning, and the wind speed was more or less normal.

With train services in the south division of Sealdah and flight services at Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport having resumed after being suspended for a long time, city life started springing back to normalcy.

However, train service was disrupted at Kolkata Metro on Monday morning following waterlogging at the tracks in certain places.

The India Meteorological Department on Monday informed that the Cyclonic Storm ‘Remal’ over Coastal Bangladesh and adjoining Coastal West Bengal moved nearly northwards, with a speed of 15 kilometres per hour.

“Severe cyclonic storm Remal over Coastal Bangladesh and adjoining Coastal West Bengal weakened into a cyclonic storm at 0530 p.m. on 27 May about 70 km northeast of Canning and 30 km west-southwest of Mongla. The system is likely to gradually weaken further,” IMD posted on X earlier.

Following the landfall of cyclonic storm Remal, waterlogging was witnessed in parts of Kolkata with heavy rain.

The IMD earlier informed that the storm Remal would continue to move nearly northwards for some more time and then north-northeastwards and weaken gradually into a cyclonic storm.

In Memary of East Bardhaman district a father and his son were electrocuted when they touched a banana tree connected with a live wire at their village Kalanabagram. In another case of electrocution, a 47-year-old man died on Raja Road in Panihati in North 24-Parganas this morning when he touched a live wire snapped during the cyclone and was found lying on the road.

The relentless heavy rain is hampering these operations in most of the affected areas in Hingalganj, Frazerganj, Jharkhali, Bakkhali etc. The state government has initiated relief operations, providing food, drinking water and medical assistance to the people affected.