Thunderstorm, rain hit state, four dead

At least four persons were killed and several other injured across the state as a massive thunderstorm hit several districts on Saturday afternoon. The Regional Meteorological Centre (RMC) at Alipore described this thunderstorm as nor'wester and indicated a possibility of a similar one on Sunday afternoon as well. Four persons including a minor boy were electrocuted to death in West Burdwan. According to a local report, they were working on the field while heavy thunderstorm accompanied by a squall and frequent lightning started. They were desperately trying to reach to a nearby shelter but died of electrocution.

A source, however, claimed that the death toll from Nor'wester on Saturday was six and the incidents were reported from East and West Burdwan.

Several districts of south Bengal — North and South 24 Parganas, Nadia, Howrah, Hooghly, East and West Midnapore and Bankura and Murshidabad as well as some districts in North Bengal received rain and thundershowers.

Many bamboo and cloth-made camps set up for the elections were broken on Friday evening and the political party workers repaired those camps overnight.

Shekh Aminuddin (30) and Chiranjit Das (24), two Jamuria residents, Shankar Chowdhuri (14) and Salauddin Ansari, two Salanpur residents died during the thunderstorm, police informed. Electricity supply too were hampered in several districts during the storm and the condition of Bankura was worst among all the districts. But the administration quickly resolved the problem by evening.

Unlike districts, the intensity of storm was not so heavy in Kolkata but the effect of rain was seen crippling road traffic, railway services and flight operations and hitting power supply in a few places. In Diamond Harbour, an electricity pole broke from the middle. The Kolkata Police said that trees fell in at least 10 places of the city following the thunderstorm which was accompanied by winds at a speed of over 90 kmph. The workforce of Kolkata Municipal Corporation were soon pressed into service to move the big tree trunks from the roads to normalise traffic movement.

According to RMC, the storm struck Kolkata at 4 pm immediately throwing normal life out of gear. In districts, it came just two hours before hitting the city. "This is purely a nor'wester. It has been frequently coming in this season without rain but on Saturday it came with rain. This is a different case but it is nothing but a nor'wester," said Ganesh Kumar Das, Director, RMC Kolkata.