At least 10 people died after record rainfall triggered severe flooding and paralysed Kolkata just as the eastern Indian city was preparing to celebrate its biggest festival, APA reports, citing msn.com.
Kolkata and its suburbs received the heaviest rainfall in almost 40 years, flooding roads, knocking out power in many areas for hours, suspending train services, and grinding daily life to a halt on Tuesday.
The city by the Bay of Bengal received 251.4mm rainfall between Monday night and Tuesday morning, making it the sixth wettest day in 137 years, local media reported.
Most of the rain fell during the early hours of Tuesday and was the heaviest witnessed in the city since 1988, said HR Biswas, the regional head of India Meteorological Department (IMD) in Kolkata.
Nine of the 10 people who died were reportedly electrocuted.
The city is currently illuminated with thousands of decorative lights ahead of Durga Puja, a Hindu festival celebrated with great pomp and fervour.
Kolkata comes alive in a grand spectacle of light as thousands of elaborate, temporary structures rise up every year for the five-day worship of goddess Durga. Durga Puja in the city is on the UN’s list of the “Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity”.
The heavy downpour was triggered by a low-pressure area in the Andaman Sea, officials said.
“Moisture-laden clouds stayed over Kolkata for hours. Their height ranged between 5km and 7km from the surface,” HR Biswas at the Regional Meteorological Centre in Alipore told The Telegraph.
He ruled out a cloudburst as the cause of the excessive downpour, explaining that a cloudburst “involves much taller cumulonimbus clouds and a deafening roar in most cases”.
The weather department ruled out heavy rain in the city over the next 24 hours but predicted mostly cloudy skies with light to moderate showers. Authorities, though, warned that another low-pressure area was “likely to form over the northwest and adjoining central Bay of Bengal” around Thursday.
The flooding situation was worsened by the closing of lock gates to keep out high tide in the Hooghly river just as the downpour intensified at night, leading to water bodies overflowing.
The city administration declared holidays for all schools and colleges until Friday as its workers struggled to pump out floodwaters from the inundated streets a day after the downpour. Pictures on social media showed people wading through chest-deep water.
Ilgar Khudiyev
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