Calcutta, June 17: Bangladesh’s gain could be Bengal’s pain for another 24 hours.

A depression that made landfall in Bangladesh has crossed into India instead of changing course as usual, revitalising the rain lashing Calcutta and other south Bengal districts since Monday night.

The Met office said today that the depression, which is yet to weaken, is expected to bring more rain to Calcutta and the rest of south Bengal during the next 24 hours.

The rainfall could be as high as over 250mm in some places, which falls into the “extremely heavy category”. Rainfall above 65mm is considered “heavy”.

“The depression lay close to Burdwan this evening. We expect heavy rains with extremely heavy showers at isolated places in Gangetic Bengal during the next 24 hours,” said G.C. Debnath, the director of the weather section at the Regional Meteorological Centre in Alipore.

“The weather is expected to improve from Thursday.”

The Alipore Met office recorded 114mm of rainfall between 8.30pm on Monday and 8.30am on Tuesday, the highest rainfall in the city so far this monsoon which is still at an early stage in Bengal.

“It rained most heavily between 2am and 5am,” said Debnath.

He said heavier rainfall was reported from Contai in East Midnapore, Midnapore town in West Midnapore, Canning in South 24-Parganas and Uluberia in Howrah. “Contai received 260mm of rain, Uluberia 240mm, Midnapore 210mm and Canning 180mm.”

In West Midnapore, a Calcutta-bound Innova with three persons inside was washed away tonight.

Met officials said during the next 24 hours, districts like East and West Midnapore, Purulia, Bankura, Birbhum and Burdwan are expected to receive comparatively more rain as they lie near the path of the depression.

The officials also warned of heavy rain in Jharkhand and north Orissa during the next 48 hours.

“Around 8.30am today, the centre of the depression was lying over Nadia district and adjoining Bangladesh. Gradually, it moved in a north-westerly direction towards Burdwan,” said a Met official.

Often, weather phenomena head towards Bengal but veer off course at the eleventh hour towards Bangladesh, leaving the country perpetually at the mercy of destructive natural forces. Many a time cyclones have brushed past Bengal and wreaked havoc in Bangladesh.

However, this time, the depression stayed its course and exploded over south Bengal.

Met officials said ever since the monsoon entered Calcutta and the south Bengal districts on June 9, the current had been strong enough to bring long spells of heavy rain.

“We were watching for such low pressure systems in the Bay of Bengal as they activate the monsoon. The low pressure that formed over the north Bay of Bengal on Sunday intensified into a depression on Monday and moved in a north-westerly direction towards the Bangladesh coast,” a Met official said.

The rain had started on Monday afternoon in brief spells but intensified at night.

Many parts of Calcutta were inundated and remained so through the day but the water subsided faster than usual largely because of cleaner drains and new pipelines. Around 8pm, the driver of a private bus running past the Tollygunj tram depot died after a tree fell on the vehicle.

These are early days yet — the monsoon usually stays in Bengal till early October — but mayor Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharyya said the corporation thinks “that waterlogging this year will be much less in comparison to the past 10 years”.

The rain triggered a power crisis in the districts as all six 210MW units at the Kolaghat thermal power plant collapsed after the switchyard was flooded. The districts went through power cuts lasting six to seven hours, reeling under a shortfall of 665MW.

The rain also caused concern in the agriculture department at a time food prices are rising. “We have asked the directorate of agriculture to contact every district and assess crop damage,” said Naren Dey, the agriculture minister.