Kolkata struggles to return to normal after heavy rains, 11 dead so far

At least 11 people have died in heavy downpour which lashed the city and nearby areas on September 23 morning, even as life limped back to normal in city on Wednesday with improvement in weather, a senior official said on Wednesday.

Till filing of this report, several areas, particularly Patuli, Santoshpur, Ballygunje, Salt Lake and pockets of north and central parts of the city, remained waterlogged.

The official said while nine people died of electrocution in the city since Tuesday, two deaths were reported in neighbouring districts.

As on Tuesday, there were reports of 10 deaths by electrocution, including one from an adjoining district. On Wednesday, news of another casualty came in from South 24 Parganas district's Rajpur-Sonarpur, the official added.

While water was pumped out of low-lying areas of Kolkata and adjoining areas through the night, life limped back to normal in majority of the areas barring Patuli, Santoshpur, Ballygunje and Bidhannagar, where waterlogging continued.

Many puja pandals are still waterlogged, with just a couple of days left for festivities to begin.

Officials said though waters have started receding gradually, restoring normal life before the festive season remains the administration's immediate challenge.

Torrential overnight rain, among the heaviest in nearly four decades, left Kolkata and adjoining districts paralysed on Tuesday, crippling air, surface rail-metro and road transport, shutting educational institutions, and prompting the state government to advance Puja holidays in schools.

The downpour 251.4 mm in less than 24 hours was the highest since 1986 and sixth-highest single-day rainfall in the last 137 years, only behind the record 369.6 mm in 1978, 253 mm in 1888, and 259.5 in 1986.

It turned arterial roads into rivers, snapping Metro Rail and train services, and throwing air travel into disarray, as the city gasped for normalcy ahead of Bengal's biggest festival - Durga Puja.

The Met department has ruled out heavy rain in the city during the next 24 hours, though it forecast mostly cloudy skies with light to moderate showers accompanied by thunder and gusty winds at some places.

Weatherman, however, predicted light to moderate rains and heavy to very heavy rainfall in some isolated pockets of south Bengal on Saturday-Sunday (the day of Sasthi to mark the beginning of Durga Puja) due to formation of a new low pressure system.