Flood alert in 7 West Bengal districts ahead of Puja

Kolkata: Seven West Bengal districts have started bracing for flood ahead of Durga Puja due to a heavy rainfall in neighboring Jharkhand.

The state government said, "There is a high possibility of flood in seven districts of West Bengal, viz., Paschim Bardhaman, Bankura, Birbhum, Purba Bardhaman, Paschim Medinipur, Hooghly and Howrah due to the continuing and predicted high rainfall in upper catchment areas in Jharkhand."

Gearing up to the challenge, it has ordered the integrated command centres be kept operational in the seven districts and mandated a 5-hourly report from the districts to disaster management 24x7 control room on rainfall, river water levels, embankment breaches and evacuation of people.

The district administration and police have been instructed to identify the low lying and flood prone areas and conduct miking in those areas along with preparatory measures for evacuation of people to safer locations.

State chief secretary HK Dwivedi informed that the India Meteorological Department has predicted rainfall to continue till October 5. The well-marked low pressure area is currently hovering over Jharkhand and is likely to continue there for some more time.

This will continue to cause high precipitation and will result into high inflow of water into the dams. Rainfall in Jharkhand was measured more than 50 mm in the upper catchment area on October 1, according to the state government.

The inflow into Maithon Dam is currently 60,000 cusec and at Panchet Dam is 73,000 cusec. The release from the dams downstream was made 1,00,000 cusec at 9 am onwards Monday.