A high tide in the Hooghly on Tuesday afternoon worsened the situation in the areas along the Tolly’s Nullah. Several streets in BBD Bagh also witnessed waterlogging due to the high tide as the lock gates along the Hooghly were closed.
However, this low pressure system is moving away. “From Tuesday onwards, the weather will improve as far as rainfall is concerned. The temperature will also start rising,” said GK Das director (weather) at Regional Meteorological Centre Kolkata.
The low pressure system will be moving over to Vidarbha, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat gradually. As a result, the rainfall in Bengal will slow down from Tuesday onwards.
The rain is due to a well marked low pressure area in Chhatisgarh with a trough, which is extending from there to Bangladesh across Bengal and Orissa, bringing in rain. While all parts of south Bengal received light to moderate rain, the areas in South 24 Parganas, East and West Midnapore and Jharkhand witnessed a few spells of heavy showers.
The Met office, however, is keeping a close tab on another low pressure area that is likely to form over the Bay of Bengal by September 11.
The hour-long heavy rain was not consistent across Kolkata. Several areas in the city received over 30mm rain on an average in an hour. The Kolkata Municipal Corporation’s drainage network can barely pump out 10mm rain water in an hour. An anxious civic administration decided to operate all heavy- duty pumps in the major drainage pumping stations to save certain low-lying pockets from severe waterlogging as the downpour continued till late in the afternoon.
Going by rainfall pattern as recorded by the KMC’s drainage pumping stations, while north Kolkata pockets like Belgachhia, Ultadanga or Maniktala received less than 30mm rainfall between 11am and noon, several south Kolkata areas such as Jodhpur Park and Kalighat received over 40mm rain during the same time. Palmer bridge drainage pumping station in Beliaghata also recorded over 40mm rainfall in an hour.
A KMC sewerage and drainage department official said they were worried over the city’s low lying and waterlogging-prone areas due to showers on Wednesday. “We are keeping a watch on large parts of Thanthania, Behala, Kidderpore, Garia, Jadavpur and several areas located off EM Bypass, including Madurdaha and Mukundapur. If needed, we may have to press into service portable pumps to flush out storm water from low-lying areas,” said the civic official.
For the rest of the city, the KMC will keep its drainage pumping stations ready to combat waterlogging when it rains. “We have asked the executive engineers of all drainage pumping stations to keep ready all heavy-duty pumps so that they could be deployed in the event of a heavy downpour,” said a KMC drainage department official.
Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata/heavy-rain-high-tide-swamp-city-pockets-weather-to-improve-today/articleshow/86019878.cms
