Floods in Hooghly sweep away villages

HOOGHLY: A layer of grimy yellow covers everything as far as your eyes can see. Lamp posts are bent sideways. The ground floor and first floor of school and college buildings have disappeared under water. Smaller houses have been just swept away without any resistance.
The catastrophic floods that have swallowed large swathes of districts in South Bengal have erased the existence of Jangalpara village in Hooghly's Purshura.Three hundred families that inhabited the village, that now resembles an overflowing river, have taken refuge on the elevated state highway connecting Arambagh with Bankura.
"We were plain lucky to have escaped," said Haripada Kundu, a 67-year-old farmer, looking out from a roadside perch onto the ruined village. "The water gushed in and swept away everything. My family could salvage only the basic things before we fled to save our lives."
Large parts of south Bengal have been inundated since early this week with incessant rains causing DVC to release water. The brimming rivers have unleashed havoc claiming atleast 28 lives till now. Six people have died in Hooghly alone. A boat capsized in Chhtrashal on Friday morning killing one person.
Early this week when Damodar began to swell and inundate villages, villagers watched from the safe perch of their new homes on the elevated state highway. People who once inhabited these live, numbering more than 2,500, said that this is a perennial problem in this area.
"We become homeless like this every year though this year the situation is very severe. What is shocking is that the administration only comes to our rescue after the damage is done. No precautionary measures are taken to avert the disaster," said Pushpa Hansda.
As people waited here for rescue and relief on rooftops, balconies and on the wayside, fear was gradually giving way to anger and resentment over what some saw as a slow response to flooding that began with heavy rains last week and has left thousands of families without any roof and relief.
In Mirzapur village, where the water was about seven feet at its deepest point and several small homes were washed away, residents alleged that rescue boats and relief materials were being taken to another area. Some said only the politically connected were being rehabilitated. Others complained that the state administration was incompetent.
The district administration has however claimed it has managed to reach every pocket of the flood affected areas barring a few areas in Khanakul which are completely cut-off.
"We are distributing rice, baby food, potatoes, pulses, salt and water pouches at the panchayat level. The representatives are receiving the relief materials and taking to their areas to distribute among the affected people," said Sanjay Bansal, district magistrate of Hooghly.
Tapan Dasgupta, minister and MLA from Hooghly, admitted that there were not enough boats to access the hinterland submerged in water. "We will get five boats by tomorrow from Balagarh. This will help us reach every pocket," said Dasgupta.