by Santanu Bhattacharjee– Covid taught India a lesson . Amphan of Bengal too taught India a lesson. But sadly none of these lessons are taken by the two pillars of constitution. Henceforth citizens have to take the lessons for themselves and stay prepared for the worst to come. The worst no electricity for atleast 10 days and no communication ( mobile , internet , cable television)during this period along with shortage of food and water will actually mean a real worst situation.
In the ravage of amphan the meteorological department had predicted nicely the movement of the cyclone. Hence the onus was on adminsitration to take the precautionary steps to prevent or reduce the extent of the damage. This measures are to be in longterm and other tobe in short term.
The shortterm measures involve distribution of relief materials , providing support to rebuild the damaged houses and to take steps to restore the minimum necessity of the normalcy. These tasks are really herculian one when one have to execute it on the ground level. But for this too some long term planning is necessary so that these may be rolled out when they are actually needed.
In long term the initiation of the preparedness may start from class v of school level. there shold be stricter enforcement of the norms for building houses and to ensure their stability. However in India votebank politics is killing the initiative for laying a strong foundation of a disaster proof blueprint.
The cyclone has killed at least 72 persons and ravaged Kolkata and several parts of West Bengal. It has destroyed thousands of homes and swamped low-lying areas of the state. So far, 96 deaths have been reported due to Cyclone Amphan. “I would request Prime Minister Narendra Modi to come and visit Cyclone Amphan-affected areas, ” West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi made an aerial survey of damage caused in Odisha, Bengal on May 22.
News agency PTI reported that a man and a woman were killed when trees came crashing down on them in North 24 Parganas district. A 13-year-old girl died in a similar incident in adjoining Howrah. As many as three persons were killed in Hooghly and North 24 Paraganas districts due to the electrocution. Officials said that a woman and her seven-year-old son were killed in the Regent park area of Kolkata after a tree fell on them. A person was killed in Kolkata after being hit by a flying object during the storm.
Citizens in Kolkata woke up to a devastating sight on Thursday morning after severe cyclonic storm Amphan pummelled the city for more than seven hours till late on Wednesday.While rescue and restoration operations started as early as 1:30 am at night, the government said it would take days before the city limps back to normalcy.Flooded roads, broken homes and widespread power outages have been reported in the city after the worst storm in decades and authorities are concerned about the economic impact of the devastating episode.
Water-logging has also been reported in many low-lying areas in the city, making life tougher for citizens in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak. Normal services have also been severely hit in Kolkata.
