Incessant rains, waterlogging numb Kolkata
The Hindu
Met warns possible rise in water level of rivers and damage to standing vegetable crops
Normal life was thrown out of gear in and around Kolkata on Monday when these places woke up to waterlogged roads and non-stop downpour continuing from the small hours of Sunday.
The Met department, which attributed the sudden change in weather to a cyclonic circulation over northwest Bay of Bengal, predicted heavy to very heavy rain — seven to 20 cm — in some places over Kolkata, and the districts of North and South 24 Parganas, Hooghly and Nadia. This is the highest rainfall the region is experiencing on a single day since 2007.
An orange alert has been issued for these places for Monday. The department warned possible rise in water level of rivers and damage to standing vegetable crops. “Yesterday’s cyclonic circulation over northwest Bay of Bengal and adjoining areas of north Odisha-West Bengal-Bangladesh coasts now lies over Gangetic West Bengal and neighbourhood and now extends up to 5.8 km above mean sea level,” it said in a special bulletin.