City of Joy witnesses first Nor'wester of 2019; train, flight services hit
Kolkata: With the weather taking a sudden turn for the worse without warning, the City of Joy witnessed the first Nor'wester of the season on Friday afternoon. Due to the sudden storm and rain, train services were disrupted in the Howrah and Sealdah divisions. Flight services were also suspended for almost half-an-hour due to the storm at Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International (NSCBI) Airport.
According to the Alipore weather office, thundershower is likely to occur on Saturday in Sikkim, Jharkhand, Odisha, Darjeeling and Kalimpong of Sub-Himalayan Bengal, along with East and West Midnapore, North 24-Parganas and Jhargram of Gangetic Bengal.
Other districts across the state may witness dry weather. The temperature may increase during day by 2-¬3 degree Celsius during the next few days.
On Saturday, Kolkata may witness light rain or thundershower accompanied gusty winds. The maximum and minimum temperature will be around 35 degree and 23 degree Celsius. On Friday, the maximum and minimum temperature was 34.6 degree Celsius which was normal and 25.3 degree Celsius which was 2 degree above normal.
Due to the sudden Nor'wester on Friday afternoon, train services were hampered in both Howrah and Sealdah sections. In several places of the Sealdah South section, trees got uprooted and fell on the overhead electric wires, suspending train services.
Several local and long distance trains commenced late from Sealdah. Apart from train services, flight operation at the NSCBI Airport in Kolkata was also suspended for almost half an hour due to the gusty winds and storm.
Traffic across the city also got affected due to the storm as it almost came to a hault, resulting in huge congestion. Following the storm, thundershower also affected traffic movement. In some parts of the city, vehicular movement slowed down to a crawl due to waterlogging.
According to police report, traffic movement was very slow on Strand Road and M G Road due to waterlogging. Reports of waterlogging were also received from Sealdah, Judges Court Road and Diamond Harbour Road.
Vehicular movement was disrupted in front of Writers' Buildings after a huge tree got uprooted and blocked the road completely. Kolkata Police and its Disaster Management Group (DMG) managed to clear the road by cutting the tree within a few hours. Trees were uprooted in 11 more places across the city, as per police report.
An uprooted tree fell on the empty vehicle of the Additional OC of Muchipara police station, which was parked outside the police station. No one was injured in the incident.
Apart from Kolkata, Gangetic districts such as Howrah, Hooghly, Bankura and Burdwan also witnessed storm and thundershower on Friday afternoon.
Two firefighters at Budbud in East Burdwan died after being struck by lightning. Another person also died in a lightning strike at Manteswar in East Burdwan district. Hailstorm took place in some parts of Hooghly and South 24-Parganas.
