City airport prepares for cyclone, planes tied up
All flight operations from Kolkata airport remained suspended for 15 hours from Thursday evening to Friday morning as the sever cyclone comes closer to West Bengal and Odisha coast.
All the municipality and panchayat areas within Hooghly district are on high alert to face any kind of emergency situation arising from the cyclone.
The Hooghly district disaster management department officer in-charge Masudur Rehaman said, “Control rooms have been opened in all levels of administration which are interlinked with each other. The district administration is coordinating with the PWD. Till now, more than 18,000 people are being evacuated to relief and shelter camps. Medical teams are on alert, sufficient food and drinking water is kept ready for dispatch wherever required. East Midnapore is on red alert, Arambagh is adjacent to it. Hence, the NDRF team has already been deployed in Arambagh. The control room numbers of different administrative levels have been provided to the common people for any kind of emergency.
The municipalities along the Hooghly river and civic bodies and panchayats along Damodar, Dwarkeswar rivers face a threat of overflowing river banks during high tide, accompanied by very heavy rain and high velocity cyclones. Regular miking is being carried out in both municipality and panchayat areas of the district, asking people to stay indoors. Residents are being shifted from kuccha and semi-pucca houses to shelter camps.
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The DVC irrigation canal, which is connected with river Hooghly passes through the heart of Champdany town. During the high tide, followed by heavy rainfall and cyclone, the irrigation canal may overflow, inundating large parts of Champdany town.
The Champdany municipality chairman, Suresh Mishra said, “We have kept the drainage system completely free of blockage. Most of the overgrowth of trees, dangerously hanging over the electric wires, have been trimmed. For drinking water, mobile tanks are kept ready to meet any kind of emergency. Generators are kept on standby to continue with emergency service.
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