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#AmphanEffect: Kolkata's showpiece floating market destroyed


One of Kolkata's most talked-about projects, the Patuli floating market, has been devastated by the Amphan. Inspired by the Bangkok floating market in Thailand and built at a cost of almost Rs 9 crore, it was built to rehabilitate the displaced hawkers in the area, even as it eventually turned out to be a major tourist attraction with painted boats and twinkling lights.



When CT visited the spot on Tuesday morning, the instagram friendly floating market was the very picture of tragedy with broken planks, boats and props bobbing in the water.

Swapan Halder, a vegetable seller at the Patuli floating market, said his boat was first smashed and then submerged. He could not save a single piece of vegetable the next morning, when he went to take stock of the damages. Like Swapan, more than 200 people at the floating market have lost everything on Wednesday.

In 2018, when the state government inaugurated the project there were 214 boats, selling all types of grocery and vegetable items. With more than 90% of the boats damaged and the approach road partly damaged, no electricity, drinking water, no one quite knows if there is any future for the market. "We have nothing left. I had a tea stall here and now it’s all gone. I don’tknow, how we are going to survive now,” said Sunanda Paik .



Fortunately, there were no casualties as all the hawkers were asked to vacate the market before the cyclone struck. “But we couldn’t take the already stocked goods with us and now they are all gone. I have lost Rs 20,000 worth of goods. I don’t know I will ever be able to get back on my feet,” said Swapan.


The two security guards on duty at the market recount the hours of horror when furniture, objects and parts of the boats were thrown up in the air and came crashing down. Fortunately, around 10 boats were kept on the shore for repairing a month before, and they all managed to survive.

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