Jaigaon, Oct. 4: Over 3,500 land phones in Hashimara, Kalchini and Jaigaon remain dead, 40 hours after a lightning strike damaged the BSNL’s Hashimara exchange.

Hospitals, police stations, banks and business establishments as well as domestic users have all been affected by the disruption in telephone service since 4 am yesterday, when during a thunderstorm, a bolt of lightning hit the microwave tower on top of the exchange building.

While the phones remain dead, essential services could not be reached. “Ambulances cannot be contacted to take emergency patients to North Bengal Medical College and Hospital in Siliguri,” said Tarun Bose, the assistant secretary of Hashimara-Dalsingpara Development Society.

Businessmen who needed to telephone Siliguri, Jalpaiguri, Calcutta and other places found themselves in a fix. “They are being forced to go to Pheuntsholling in Bhutan and spend large amounts of money to make ISD calls,” said K.P. Basuball, the general secretary of Kalchini Block Byabsayee Samiti. “If this continues, it will badly affect business in this region.”

BSNL’s junior telecom officer Subir Ghosh said the lightning bolt had severely damaged a number of equipment at the exchange, including communication cards, which were burnt. “We are working on a war footing. Technicians from Jalpaiguri and Alipurduar have come to help us in restoring connection,” he said.

Ghosh, however, could not provide any time frame for the completion of repair work.

Under the situation, mobile phones could have been an alternative, but they work only in certain pockets of the affected areas, Basuball said.