After 59 straight days, state receives rain and respite

Most of South Bengal likely to experience showers from Sunday

KOLKATA: Several parts of Kolkata and other South Bengal districts received scattered rainfall accompanied with strong breeze on Friday evening. After a span of 59 days, the city witnessed one or two spells of rain, giving some relief to people from the scorching summer.

However, in an unfortunate incident, a retired government employee in Nadia died after a branch of a tree fell on him.

Rains did not last for long. Several stretches in Bankura, Birbhum received rainfall on Friday afternoon while Howrah, North 24-Parganas, Hooghly, Kolkata witnessed showers in the evening. The Alipore MeT office added that several parts of South Bengal will also receive scattered rainfall in the next two days.

The state has registered no rainfall for 59 straight days — a development that happened around 22 years ago, sources said.

Heatwave casualty in the state has already reached five. A 70-year-old woman from South 24-Parganas’ Canning died after suffering a sun stroke. The victim, Chapala Gayen, was going to her relative’s house on Thursday afternoon when she fell ill. She was immediately taken to a local hospital where she was declared dead. A pregnant woman died in heat stroke in Purulia on Thursday. The victim, Chaitali Mahato (22), a resident of Noapara village in Purulia, came to the district town for a check-up. She suffered a sun stroke and died. Purulia registered its highest temperature at 44.3 degrees Celsius on Thursday.

The MeT office on Thursday predicted that a favourable atmosphere for rains will be created in South Bengal after Friday. There are possibilities of thunderstorms in Kolkata and adjoining districts between Sunday and Tuesday. Most of the South Bengal districts may receive rainfall from Sunday to Tuesday.

In April this year, the city did not see a single Nor’wester. Normally, every year, Kolkata receives at least three Nor’westers.

People in all of South Bengal have been experiencing sultry weather conditions due to excessive humidity. According to a study, the highest temperature has gone up by 2.6 degree Celsius on an average basis in the past 50 years in Kolkata and surrounding areas. As the country is going to witness extremely hot weather, it will trigger climate changes in the east coast and there will be more cyclones along that stretch in the days to come, experts have pointed out.

The Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change in its report said that Kolkata may turn into a ‘cyclone city’ in the future which is highly alarming.