36 hrs under water, without power, families trapped in city pockets

Kolkata: For several families in different pockets of the city, the ordeal of the downpour is still not over. Though nearly 36 hours have passed since the torrential downpour ceased on Tuesday morning, they continue to live in inundated localities without power.Residents of Ballygunge Place are still marooned and living without power and water. Joydip Mukherjee, who lives here, said: "There has been no power, and hence, no tap water for almost two days. The CESC officials have informed us that until the water recedes, they will not restore electricity. We are kind of trapped in the house, and I could not go to office either."Those living in a high-profile condominium complex in Ajoy Nagar, where over 3,000 people live, are also without power with no clarity in sight as to when supply will resume. Natasa Mukherjee, who stays there, said: "Our complex has about 900 flats, and the ground floors are still inundated. Over 100 cars and many bikes are floating in the open parking area. We have been without power since 4.30 am on Tuesday. Many of our residents have started moving to the houses of their relatives."CESC officials said the transformer at Survey Park had been switched off because of the flooding. "The water level at Survey Park is still beyond the safety level. Services can be restored once the water recedes," an official said.Residential areas off EM Bypass, like Patuli, Panchasayar, Mukundapur, Kalikapur, and Tagore Park, remained under water on Wednesday. The flooding at Patuli is due to lack of maintenance of the jheels, felt Asesh Lahiri, a local resident. "Shops have come up, and people throw waste into the water bodies that have become shallow. Desilting and removal of plastic, maintaining inter-connection between ponds, and strengthening the banks when necessary can resolve inundation woes in our area."Local councillor of Patuli, Swaraj Kumar Mondal, said: "We have not seen such rain in the past 30 years. We are trying our best to drain out the storm water. We hope that the situation will improve soon."Barely 100 metres from Amherst Street police station, five siblings of the Sarkhel family had a harrowing night as they could hardly step out of their house, even to buy a bottle of water. They spent more than 30 hours before the electricity supply was finally restored on Wednesday afternoon. Two of them — one paralytic and the other a COPD patient — were in extreme anxiety. They needed medicines but could not go out. The irony is that they run a medicine shop near their house at Amherst Street but could not access it."We first approached the police headquarters at Lalbazar, requesting cops to bail us out. On the advice of the cops, we contacted the local police station. But cops said that they were not in a position to send anyone to our house," recounted Ratan Sarkhel, one of the siblings.