Nabanna officials lately conceded about the casualties of the severe flood in sundry districts that 10 people have lost their lives so far due to the torrent rainstorm throughout the state. In Howrah, two of the local members were mislaid. More than 10 lakh people turned out to be derelict as the deluge of water cascaded into suburbs and towns as well. The situation went extravagant when the Damodar barrage rifted at Samantapara, Batla and Monsukla thereby quaffing more than 168 villages into its cistern dent.
After the revision meeting on such flood circumstances, the chief minister Mamata Banerjee asserted that the deaths caused the flood and severe downpour did not further step up from 39 people reported earlier and she added that Gangetic plains have impinged in 12 districts as well. The flood situation in South Bengal went much gruesome so people at least 1.12 lakhs harboured in the relief camps in 12 districts of the state. Perhaps, the heavy rainstorm will be sustained for the next two days as the department MeT department affirmed.
On this note, Banerjee took a decisive action,
“So far 966 relief camps have been set up that are sheltering 1.19 lakh affected people and another 124 medical camps have been opened,” Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said Saturday.
According to the officials that Banerjee is very much perturbed about the matter of immediate criticality, as she departed for Udaynarayanpur in the most afflicted district Howrah to analyze the circumstances and to take prompt actions for its blockage. The statement included that she is prompted to visit as much as flood hit areas are long.
During the investigation about the cause of the flood, she had a video conference with all the district magistrates of the affected districts. In a press release, she alluded the matter of entreaty to the DVC for arresting the redundant emanation of water. After few more urges went to vain she was constrained to grumble about DVC to the Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal.
“Earlier too I had written to the DVC to undertake dredging and to increase the capacity of their reservoirs, but sadly it had done nothing of the sort. We always cooperate with the DVC, but it doesn’t cooperate,” She recounted.
Nevertheless, the DVC retaliated the indictment of surplus emission of water through the barrages and further pointed out the reason for this appalling flood in low-height areas.
During a press release, they averred,
“The flooding over the past few days is mainly due to the high tidal effects and KOMEN depression-related rainfall. The combined release on August 3 was 95,000 cusecs which is lower than the safe downstream channel carrying capacity of the Damodar river which is 1,10,000 cusecs,”
They also asserted that the levees at Panchet and Maithon are much potent to mitigate the tidal torrents of water dropping down to a regular ambit of 68 percent for the last couple of days as they tolerated much more anomalous heavy rainstorm for the last few days in Jharkhand and West Bengal.
In the interim, she undertook an appointment with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi on August 11 to 12 to contend about solutions and also stipulated for the loss due to this flood catastrophe from the National Disaster Relief Fund.
She added,
“I also want to raise the issue of release of water by the DVC,” Banerjee said.
Kolkata is also not out of the list of distraught. For the last few days, heavy downpour chastised Kolkata and its interconnecting areas and rattled the bustling but jubilant life of Kolkata. Since the morning, most of the hectic roads, rail traffics of the city were inundated in knee-height water. Some of the major pathways like Park Street, Central Avenue, Hospital Road, Theatre Road, Amherst Street and some sectors of Diamond Harbour Roads caused some serious traffic quagmire as they were totally submerged.
Member Mayor-in-council of Drainage system Tarak Singh assuaged that,
Kolkata Municipal Corporation is running 300 pumps from its permanent pumping stations in different parts of the city along with 360 more portable pumps to drain out the water
According to the reports from the MeT department, cyclone ‘Komen’ which hit Bangladesh initially and caused stringent impairment for two long days relentlessly and persisted there in a static condition. During the full-moon, the water-level of Ganga clocked a height of 6.8 meters and integrated with the heavy shower made the water-level to climb on the uppermost areas as well. They also recorded 143.2mm rainfall in last 24 hours and portended of a heavy downpour for the next couple of days.
In other districts like Burdwan, Hooghly, Howrah, West Midnapore, East Midnapore, South 24-Parganas, North 24-Parganas, Nadia, Murshidabad, Bankura and Birbhum which were completely deluged the condition there have started to stabilize with abating rain and storm.
As the State Irrigation Minister Rajib Banerjee asserted,
“The situation is likely to improve further if there are no more rain and fresh discharge of water from the barrages,”
