Power return marks Kolkata's march back to normal

KOLKATA: Power trickled back to most of the city on Thursday after the double beating from Cyclone Amphan and Wednesday’s 96kmph nor’wester, which sent large areas of the city off the grid for several days. Some of the last islands of darkness — 35,000 homes in Behala and Thakurpukur, which had gone without power for the last eight days — were reconnected by the evening.

In addition, around 400 homes around the city and the outskirts — in Jadavpur, Panchasayar, Nayabad, Joka, Lake Town, Bangur, Dum Dum, Agarpara, Titagarh, Belur and Liluah, which had gone back to darkness after last Wednesday’s nor’wester — were reconnected.

The city slowly regained a lot of the normality it had lost in the course of the double battering. Trees that had toppled during Wednesday’s storm were removed. Waterlogging disrupted traffic in parts of north and south Kolkata, though. Even as the rain continued, some roads remained out of bounds in Belgachhia, Burrabazar and Garden Reach. But the water level subsided quickly, said civic authorities.

“We have completed most of the restoration work. Work is still under way in only a small area in Maheshtala and Budge Budge Pujali. We are now identifying stray houses that our teams may have missed. But at least 33 lakh consumers now have power. We have also restored a number of localities that suffered outage following Wednes-day’s nor’wester,” said a CESC official.

Around 400 homes in Jadavpur, Panchasayar, Nayabad, Joka, Lake Town, Bangur, Dum Dum, Agarpara, Titagarh, Belur and Liluah had suffered a blackout twice in a week following the gale at 96km/h. Power to nearly all the homes were restored by Thursday eveing. The gale also disrupted power in Bansdroni, Kamalgazi, Baruipur and Behala served by state-owned utility WBSEDCL.Residents of pockets in Behala and Thakurpukur that had been without power for 196 hours finally breathed easy after electricity returned. “I had nearly given up hope when the light switched on and the fan began whirring,” said homemaker Atrei Bose of Daspara Road, Thakurpukur. However, several of these homes have received stopgap restoration: they can use fans and lights, but cannot use high-voltage equipment like ACs and irons. With restoration now over, the utility will shift its focus to repairing the lines damaged by the cyclone so that the distribution network becomes more robust and does not trip if load increases, said CESC sources.

Even as efforts to remove uprooted trees continued, leaning full-grown trees continued to pose a threat to pedestrians, motorists and utility services. Some of the large trees which had been leaning since May 20 might topple, warned KMC, which has started identifying them.

In Dum Dum, a large tree got uprooted in the storm on Wednesday evening and blocked the road near Barafkal. During Amphan, nearly 250 trees fell in the Dum Dum Municipality area, where the wind speed had clocked over 133kmph. “We were scared with the storm on Wednesday. With a wind speed of 96kmph, it could have caused more damage and spoil what we had managed to restore in the past week,” said a civic official. The tree was removed by Wednesday afternoon and vehicular movement along the road restored.