This story is from May 22, 2020

West Bengal: 72 lives lost in Cyclone Amphan’s dance of death

The toll from Cyclone Amphan’s nine-hour march through south Bengal on Wednesday climbed to 72, including 15 lives lost in Kolkata alone, as city streets and villages continued throwing up bodies on Thursday, most of them electrocuted (in Kolkata) or buried under homes (in the districts).
West Bengal: 72 lives lost in Cyclone Amphan’s dance of death
A completely collapsed mini bus of Golf Green-Howrah route due to a uprooted tree near Golf Green TV tower
KOLKATA: The toll from Cyclone Amphan’s nine-hour march through south Bengal on Wednesday climbed to 72, including 15 lives lost in Kolkata alone, as city streets and villages continued throwing up bodies on Thursday, most of them electrocuted (in Kolkata) or buried under homes (in the districts).
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More than 88,000 hectares of paddy might be lost, along with 1 lakh hectares of vegetables and 1 lakh hectares of sesame, as Bengal stares at a loss of thousands of crores of rupees.
At least seven districts of south Bengal — West and East Midnapore, North and South 24-Parganas, Nadia, Hooghly and Howrah — besides the state capital were severely affected and the government was still trying to assess the total financial loss to the state, Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee said on Thursday.
Banerjee will be accompanying PM Narendra Modi on an aerial survey of the affected areas on Friday. Modi is scheduled to reach Kolkata at 10.45am before he and Banerjee set out for the survey; they are also slated to conduct an administrative meeting in Basirhat in North 24 Parganas before Modi flies out to Bhubaneswar in the afternoon.
“No stone will be left unturned in helping the affected. Top officials are closely monitoring the situation and working in close coordination with the Bengal government,” the PM said in a series of tweets on Thursday.
Union home minister Amit Shah spoke to Banerjee again on Thursday when the latter apprised him of the situation on the ground and asked for help from the Centre’s disaster relief fund. “I have told him (Shah) that we need the money immediately and cannot wait 500 days. I have asked for his help and I hope he will respond. But I cannot be sure till the assistance actually comes,” Banerjee said after the conversation.

The Bengal government created a Rs 1,000-crore fund that would be used to repair damaged river embankments, houses and restore water supply in affected areas. But it would take at least three-five days to assess the damage and start relief work since large swathes were still out of bounds because of extensive flooding, Banerjee said. “We are waiting for the skies to clear. Roads are blocked by uprooted trees and there is no electricity in many areas,” she added. Banerjee also announced a compensation of Rs 2 lakh each for victims’ families.
Banerjee, who described Wednesday’s cyclone as “terrifying”, said she watched several houses opposite her Kalighat residence shake and partially collapse. “A chunk of concrete came off the balcony of a house on Madan Pal Lane, close to my house. The cyclone twisted iron grilles and uprooted trees that collapsed on houses. There was a surge in the Hooghly’s water level and, had the cyclone happened during high tide, the scale of devastation would have been much higher,” she said.
The Nabanna building was left shaking by the cyclone, Banerjee added. “I was on the first floor initially and did not feel anything. But when I went up to my room on the 14th floor, I found it shaking. Several glass windows were broken,” she said, adding that the disaster could not have come at a worse time for Bengal. “We are also having to deal with the pandemic, migrant labourers’ problems and the rising cost of quarantining people,” she said.
Large parts of Kolkata, which accounted for 15 of Bengal’s 72 deaths, continued to be out of mobile coverage area and many homes did not have power, which meant that they were forced to go without water as well.
South 24 Parganas, which bore the brunt of Amphan’s impact, logged 12 deaths. Hundreds of houses were left twisted and ravaged by the raging storm. River embankments suffered extensive breaches, leading to water gushing into villages and flooding them. Rivers overran farms in a large part of the Sunderbans, damaging crops. The damage, still being assessed, is believed to be more extensive than what Aila caused 11 years ago.
North 24-Parganas, too, recorded several deaths, with Basirhat sub-division being particularly affected. Roads went under water and trees blocked roads, including National Highway 35, restricting movement of relief workers who struggled to reach the areas affected worst. Nadia, Howrah and Hooghly districts, too, recorded several deaths.
Banerjee stressed that repair and restoration work would not be compromised because of lack of funds. “We need to repair roads and ensure they are not damaged again quickly. Patchwork will not be done and repairs will happen in areas where they are needed most. Contractors must be instructed to ensure that the roads they build last at least a few and, if they crumble, they will have to repair them at their own cost,” she said.
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