A caretaker was injured and a parked car damaged on Friday morning when a large tree crashed onto Canal Side Road in Salt Lake, along the canal that separates VIP Road from the township.
The tree was uprooted by strong winds that gusted up to 88kmph.
The brief but intense spell of rain brought some relief from the heat. The maximum temperature settled at 32.1 degrees Celsius, 3.1 degrees below normal, while the minimum was 23.2 degrees Celsius, 4 degrees below normal. Alipore recorded 22.6mm of rainfall till 5.30pm on Friday.
“We are in the transition of pre-monsoon and monsoon, and the sky is expected to remain cloudy,” said H.R. Biswas, head of the weather section at the Regional Meteorological Centre in Alipore.
In Salt Lake, a tree toppled on a stretch of the road near the Bailey bridge in AE Block that connects Salt Lake and Lake Town on VIP Road. It remained blocked by the uprooted tree for nearly three hours.
A resident said the tree fell around 6am. Traffic resumed on the road around 9am.
“I was sleeping when I heard a loud sound. I came out to see that the tree had uprooted and fallen on the parked car,” said Prashant Chowdhury, who works for a company that operates out of the ground floor of a two-storey building that had the tree. The smashed car belonged to the company, said an employee.
The caretaker of the adjoining three-storey building was on the road when the tree fell. He was admitted to a medical college hospital in Calcutta, said a tenant of the three-storey building. “He was bleeding when he was taken away,” she said.
At least three trees or their branches fell on the road running along the northern boundary of Salt Lake and parallel to VIP Road, said a resident.
A few trees also fell on the same road in Salt Lake on May 29, when the city received an intense spell of rain and experienced winds of up to 88kmph.
Residents said that they had not seen branches being trimmed in at least a year. “The trees kept growing, but they were never trimmed in at least one year,” said an employee of the company whose car was damaged.
“Thunderstorm and rain started in the western districts like Birbhum, Burdwan, Nadia, and Murshidabad on Thursday night, and gradually it moved towards Calcutta and the city experienced thunderstorm and rain in the morning,” said the Regional Meteorological Centre’s Biswas.
“Thunderstorm activity that started on Friday morning will continue till Saturday morning. It will then reduce in south Bengal and go up again around June 10,” he added.
Four districts in north Bengal — Darjeeling, Kalimpong, Jalpaiguri, Alipurduar and Cooch Behar — will continue to receive rain, the Met office said. “Some places will receive heavy rain in north Bengal. Most places will receive light to moderate rain,” said Biswas.
