They kept mum and worked hard to restore essential services that were hit by Amphan.
A band of unemployed youths jumped into action to restore power and water supply lines at a rural settlement of Murshidabad district that was hit by the cyclonic storm, Amphan on Wednesday night.
The night-long storm uprooted trees, snapped electric wires and rendered running water system non-functional at Aadalpara, a small village surrounded by the state government’s forest at Gopegram area of Nabagram block.
As the government machinery was at work where greater damages were reported, the local youths of the forested hamlet took it upon themselves to clear the messes instead of getting into a conflict with disaster management agencies, said Abhijit Dutta, a local youth. The major problem caused by Amphan was that the only community water supply point went out of gear, said Mr. Dutta who is a pass-out from National Sugar Institute, Kanpur.
Armed with wood-cutting weapons like axes, saws, iron cutters etc and equipments meant for repair of electric lines, the village youths teamed up with a couple of expert electric technicians and embarked on restoration works. Adequate care and caution were taken to ensure that no accident can take place, said the Samaritan youths.
It was Kartik Marjit who stood guard at the main electric transformer to monitor the repair works while his neighbor, Kajal Marjit climbed the electric poles and reconnected the snapped wires.
The dark rooms were lit up and the water supply was fully restored, said Ranajit Sarkar who cleared the electric lines of broken tree branches. His friend, Sanju Mondal who is a student of Nabagram College, helped the team work by removing the wooden logs from the roads.
With essential services being restored, the villagers’ resentment died down. “Now, we demand an institutionalized quarantine centre to contain corona-virus outbreak”, said the residents of Aadalpara.