Sunderbans badly-hit by Tuesday's nor'wester

Around 1147 mud houses were totally damaged and another 2300 partly, two persons were injured in the nor'wester that hit the Sunderbans on Tuesday afternoon, official sources said today.
Canning SDO Pradip Acharya said, 1091 mud houses were totally damaged while 1292 were partly in the Canning 1 block area in the 20-minute storm, which appeared like a mini-hurricane.
The storm totally destroyed 56 mud houses in the Basanti block besides, partly damaging 367 mud houses, he said.
Around 800 mud-built houses were partly damaged in Gosaba block, while two persons were injured in a wall-collapse in the block's Sathjelia area yesterday, he said, adding, that rice, polythene sheets and dry food materials have been sent to the affected families.

Four tourist boats, which were sailing during the storm, capsized but the tourists managed to swim to safety, Acharya said.
Yesterday's nor'wester, which was accompanied by heavy rain, uprooted several trees in the Sunderbans. It disrupted train services at Basanti, Kultoli, Patharpratima and Canning besides, hitting power supply and telephone services in the area, he said.