As monsoon showers washed the city in intermittent spells in the past two days, city roads remained water logged and threw the city out of gear. The city received heavy rainfall since Monday. After a two-hour long shower on Tuesday, major arterial roads in the city were water logged throwing traffic out of gear and questioning the municipality pumps’ capacity to pump out the excess water.
On Tuesday, the city awoke to a rainy morning and water logged streets. However, the water was drained out in a few hours. No such luck greeted people on Tuesday when they stepped out on the roads in the evenings and were welcomed with knee-deep water.
Although the situation was slightly better on Wednesday, major areas in central and north Kolkata continued to remain submerged after the city received 91.8 mm of rainfall during the day.
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While Mayor Shovan Chatterjee assured that pumps had successfully been pumping out water from the streets, people were seen wading through the streets in ankle-deep water on Wednesday afternoon.
Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s downpour is likely to continue, said officials at the regional Meteorological Centre, Alipore, on Wednesday. A low pressure over coastal Bangladesh and adjoining areas of gangetic West Bengal had been forming since Tuesday, an official statement by director of the Regional Met office G.C. Debnath stated. The low pressure is associated with a cyclonic circulation extending up to 7.6 km above sea level, tilting south-westwards.
Heavy to rather heavy rain is likely to occur over the city, Howrah, other regions of gangetic West Bengal and north Bengal in the next 24 hours. On Wednesday, the maximum temperature in the city was 32.3 degrees Celsius, one degree below normal, and the minimum was 26 degrees Celsius.
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The temperature is likely to hover in the ranges of 25 to 32 degrees Celsius in the coming 24 hours, met officials said.