Moderate impact of Cyclone Remal in coastal Bengal, high alert continues

Kolkata, May 27 (IANS) After making a more or less moderate impact in certain pockets of West Bengal, Cyclone Remal weakened into a 'cyclonic storm' and is expected to weaken further in the day, said the weather department on Monday. 

The state administration continued to be on high alert following predictions of “heavy” to “very heavy” rainfall.

Fortunately, except for the death of a person due to the collapse of a portion of the wall of a dilapidated building at North Kolkata during the storm on Sunday night, there has not been any other report of casualty due to the Cyclone Remal.

Following the impact of the storm, state administration officials said, there had been reports of the uprooting of several trees and the collapse of mud houses from certain coastal belts in the state. As per information passed by the state administration over one lakh people have been evacuated from vulnerable areas, especially in the coastal belts.

In the state capital Kolkata, trees were uprooted and overhead electricity wires were damaged. However, in both cases, the authorities addressed these problems promptly, following which there were no major reports of power-supply disconnections or impact on Internet services in the city. Certain roads in Kolkata continued to be waterlogged till the time the report was filed.

From Monday morning although there has been scattered rainfall, the wind speed was more or less normal. However, the wind speed was significantly high even in certain coastal belts of the state.

The worst affected was the local train services at South Division of Sealdah Kolkata, which remained suspended for around 10 hours since Sunday night and resumed only after 9 a.m. on Monday.

The flight services at Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport were suspected for 21 hours starting from 12.30 p.m. Sunday. Flight services have also resumed there as per the latest information available.

Railways officials said the local train services in the South Division had to be stopped in the early morning hours on Monday, the first working day of the week, because of the uprooted trees falling on the tracks at several places.