Army joins cyclone relief work

KOLKATA GRAPPLES WITH POWER AND WATER SHORTAGES

THE Indian Army has been mobilised to help with the clean-up after a devastating cyclone hit the eastern city of Kolkata, as thousands last Sunday (24) protested again over power and water shortages.

At least 112 people were killed in eastern India and Bangladesh after Cyclone Amphan, the strongest storm to hit the region since 1999, struck last Wednesday (20).

Streets were flooded in Kolkata, home to 15 million people, while power lines were brought down and fallen trees blocked roads.

Authorities already grappling with the coronavirus struggled to clear roads – some which remained flooded – as well as restore electricity and water to homes. Police used batons to disperse the protesters as Mamata Banerjee, chief minister of West Bengal – of which Kolkata is the capital – called for calm.

“This is a huge disaster. We need to have patience, because nobody has seen such a disaster before,” Banerjee said last Sunday “We are not sitting idle... A shortage of manpower stemming from the Covid-19 pandemic is hobbling relief and restoration efforts.”

Around 200 soldiers from the Indian Army’s Eastern Command joined more than 4,000 disaster relief personnel and local volunteers working on the streets, a military officer said.

One of Asia’s oldest botanic gardens was not spared by the cyclone, with more than 1,000 trees uprooted and hundreds more damaged, officials said.

“It ravaged the over two-centuries-old Great Banyan Tree, a main attraction,” said Kanak Das, director of Kolkata’s Indian Botanical Garden, founded in 1786 by an East India Company officer. “The pride of the garden is lost.” The popular century-old Baobab Tree and the “Mad Tree” – which locals say has leaves that appear to take different shapes – were also uprooted during the storm, Das added.

The cyclone also smashed into the Sundarbans, a Unesco world heritage sitestraddling India and Bangladesh famed for its mangrove forest, thus destroying farms and livelihoods.

Banerjee, who visited the Sundarbans last Saturday (23), said the embankments of at least 25 rivers wre breached, impacting at least 700 villages. She warned that “large swathes of the Sundarbans could turn infertile as saline water starts sipping into the fields”. (AFP)