Two days of torrential rain left Kolkata reeling under severe waterlogging, and Udita Housing Complex along EM Bypass, still remained partly submerged and without electricity on Thursday morning. The buildings of the sprawling residential society, home to over 700 families, turned into islands after Tuesday’s deluge paralysed large parts of the city and claimed 11 lives, including two new deaths reported on Wednesday.
On Thursday afternoon, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) deployed heavy-duty pumps to flush out the accumulated water. Though the situation improved marginally compared to Wednesday, residents continue to suffer. “For the last two days, there has been a lot of water in my society. The situation now is better than yesterday. We have been organising and running the pumps all night and all day,” said resident Arib Hussain. He added that the prolonged outage had led to shortages of food and drinking water, with senior citizens and patients facing the worst brunt.
Power utility CESC had cut supply across waterlogged areas on Tuesday to prevent accidents, after the city reported multiple electrocution deaths. Engineers visited the housing complex several times but were unable to restore supply because the transformer and generator rooms remained submerged. Hussain said teams were now working “day and night” to revive supply towers, with only two still awaiting restoration by Thursday evening.
Residents described harrowing hours in the dark. Shakuntala, a board member of the complex, said, “There was no electricity from 4pm the day before yesterday. We were totally in the dark. It was a nightmare for the last 50-60 hours. Recently, KMC has sent a pump. With the help of this pump, we are able to remove water. Still, electricity has not returned fully.” She pointed out that over 60 per cent of the 3,000-odd residents are senior citizens.
The weather office has warned of more rain in Kolkata and the districts over the next 48 hours because of a cyclonic circulation over the Bay of Bengal. That has left Udita’s residents anxious about fresh waterlogging even as they await complete power restoration.
