Water in tunnel, suicide stall metro, add to commute pain
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Kolkata: Kolkata experienced severe commute challenges on Monday as heavy rainfall since morning led to waterlogging of key arterial roads in central and north Kolkata. This was compounded by two disruptions in the city's lifeline — the metro — during Monday's rush hours.
The first metro disruption was caused by water seepage into the tunnels, forcing the authorities to suspend services in the Maidan-Girish Park section for nearly two hours from 9.05am. Again, between 11.20am and 12.28pm, no train was run in the Girish Park-Noapara section after an elderly man died by suicide at Belgachhia station.
Amid heavy downpour around 8.45am, patrolling staff spotted the water on tracks between Chandni Chowk and Central stations and alerted the control room.
At 9.05am, the third rail was switched off and services were partially suspended. Truncated operations were run in Maidan-New Garia (Kavi Subhas) and Noapara-Dakshineswar sections while water was pumped out. Normal services resumed at 10.58am after the seepage was plugged.
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Commuters were stranded as multiple trains were held up between Mahatma Gandhi Road and Park Street stations. They tried boarding overcrowded buses and avail overpriced app cabs to reach their workplace.
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Archishman Chatterjee, who was headed for Baranagar, said, "At 10 am, I learnt from the passenger address system at Shahid Khudiram station that truncated services were being run. By the time I reached Maidan, normal services had resumed.
But the train stopped again at MG Road because of the Belgachhia station suicide." Police said the 69-year-old Ashokenagar resident, who jumped before a New Garia-bound train, was declared "brought dead" when taken to RG Kar Medical College and Hospital.
The metro disruptions spilled onto the streets, congesting traffic further. Daylong protests against the law college gang rape clogged BB Ganguly Street and the Y-channel in Esplanade, added to commuter woes. Police diverted traffic at Shyambazar Five-Point crossing. The snarl at Bijon Setu lasted the longest. Central Avenue, MG Road, Vivekananda Road, JM Avenue, Bidhan Sarani, BB Ganguly Street and stretches of EM Bypass were among the most affected due to waterlogging that slowed traffic to a crawl.
Though Amherst Street and KC Sen Street had only ankle-deep waterlogging, motorists tried to avoid the stretch which led to traffic jams extending from the Lock Gate flyover till Chiria More..
The inundation of tracks at the Chandni Chowk metro station reminded one of another Monday morning in May, 2024 when overnight rains caused by Cyclone Remal had flooded Park Street and Esplanade metro stations. "Due to the heavy downpour, parts of Central Avenue were under knee deep water this morning.
The water suddenly started to enter the tunnel between Central and Chandni Chawk stations around 08.30 hrs. As the a train's motorman informed the Central Control, metro services were suspended on the stretch from 9.05am to ensure passengers' safety," metro said in a statement.
Reacting to Metro Rail's statement, the M-MICoverseeing the KMC sewerage and drainage Tarak Singh said, instead of playing a blame game, the metro officials should sit with the KMC drainage department officials to arrive at a solution. "Our drainage system has nothing to do with the metro operations," he said.
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