15 dead due to heavy rain in Bengal

Kolkata, Sep 25: With the death of one more person, the toll during the heavy rains that lashed the city and adjoining areas for the past three days reached 15 even as the weather looked up this morning with vast areas of Kolkata still a veritable Venice.

Police said a youth was electrocuted by a snapped live wire at Ultadanga on the city's northern fringe while wading through a water logged street this morning.

His body, floating in the water, was found by a mobile police party.

Powered by a storm over the South China sea, a low pressure formed over the Bay of Bengal near Orissa, wreaked havoc in Kolkata and the adjoining North and South 24 Parganas districts as incessant rains and galic wind levelled hundreds of huts, uprooted trees, twisted lamp posts and damaged crops.

The rain swamped large areas of Kolkata, Howrah and North and South 24 Parganas districts while reports of death following house collapse and electrocution continued to pour in from different areas since Sunday last.

As the Met office spotted the low pressure moving away towards Chhattisgarh, the Sun peeped up this morning for the first time over the past 72 hours. However, the weatherman said more rains could be in store for the people of South Bengal over the next 24 hours under the the parting influence of the low pressure.

Following hours of respite in the downpour since late last night water started receding in some areas of Kokata even though vast areas of Behala, Tollygunge, Jadavpur, Park Circus, Camac Street, Park Street, Sealdah, College Street, Amherst Street, Dum Dum and Salt Lake remained submerged.

People had a trying time to reach their work places with the number of buses that plied the city streets being less than the average and the vehicles making a detour to skirt the water logged streets.

However, the metro railway service remained normal while no reports of fresh disruption in the suburban train services had been received so far.

UNI