Waterlogging on College Street on Wednesday morning. Picture by Pabitra Das

If a bandh wasn’t bad enough, there was rain.

The two came hand in hand and left large tracts of the city flooded, with filth from overflowing vats choking gully pits.

The 550-odd vats across the city could not be cleared on Thursday as the entire fleet of around 300 trucks of the civic conservancy department remained locked in the garages because of the CPM’s 12-hour strike.

The choked gully pits could not be cleaned as the labourers hired by the civic sewerage and drainage department, like their counterparts in other departments, stayed away from work.

Among the low-lying areas in the city that went under water were Syed Amir Ali Avenue, Panchanantala, Picnic Garden Road, CR Avenue (near Mohammad Ali Park), MM Burman Street, Thanthania, Muktaram Babu Street and Bidhan Sarani.

Mayor Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharyya said the waterlogging could not be helped as the rainfall — around 80mm — was more than the capacity of the city’s drainage system. “The pumps, however, drained out the water in the quickest possible time.”

The mayor’s claim was countered by his own engineers, who said the drainage system would have cleared out the water had the gully pits not been choked.

“The city received around 80 mm of rain in two spells. The first spell, which was heavier, continued from 5.25am to 7.25am, while the second lasted for 25 minutes from 9.45am. The sewer lines, on the other hand, can drain out 40 mm of rain in an hour. The real reason for the waterlogging is the choked gully pits,” said an engineer in the civic drainage department.

As the situation spun out of control, the sewerage and drainage departments “requisitioned” some labourers from their quarters. “They cleared the gully pits and opened manhole covers in the worst-affected areas,” said mayoral council member Farzana Chowdhury.

“We will clear the vats in the evening,” said mayoral council member (conservancy) Chandana Ghosh Dastidar. “Since labourers on our payroll refused to work in the evening, we have requested contractors to clean the vats,” said an official.