Day after repair, Behala road cracks from end to end

Kolkata: A 15ft-wide alley on Sagar Manna Road in Behala that was repaired only the previous day with freshly-laid asphalt split into halves during Friday's earthquake. A crack stretching up to nearly 12 metres had developed. The subsidence had occurred at Mannapara near Behala Parnashree, about 1.5 km from Behala Police Station.
By the afternoon, the asphalt layer cracked, and the surface sank in parts. Residents rushed out of their homes during the tremor and were stunned to find the road cleaved in two.The visuals reminded of the earthquakes held in Gujarat and Nepal in 2001 and 2015 respectively. The tremors on Friday quickly drew crowds onto the roads, though no major structural damage was reported elsewhere in the city."I was leaving home for some work when the earthquake had struck. I rushed out of the home only to find out that the road in front of my house had split in halves. This was something that I could have never imagined," said Raj Jaiswara, a bank employee, who lives near the affected stretch. Jaiswara added that he was frightened to see the damage caused and called his family members. He feared what might happened if the road had developed cracks further. Another resident from the same area, Pramod Kumar, said, "I askedmy family to step out and stand at a distance until engineers confirmed that the building was safe. I was worried that the subsidence might weaken the building's foundation," he said.Residents said the damaged stretch was once part of a large water body. The stretch, according to the residents, was filled over the years to develop multi-storey residential buildings.The railing that separates the pond from the road tilted due to the tremor. Local councillor Sanchita Mitra said the civic body teams reached the spot shortly after the incident. An earthmover was deployed to excavate the fissure. "The immediate impact of the earthquake led to the collapse of the wall by the side of the waterbody. This destabilised the soil. Consequently, the road developed a crack within minutes," said an official from the KMC's engineering department.Civic authorities began inspecting other vulnerable stretches across the city. "A special survey is being conducted to identify similar risk zones and prevent further incidents," the official from KMC added.