This story is from September 21, 2021

Overnight rain delays flights, inundates parts of city airport

Overnight rain delays flights, inundates parts of city airport
Kolkata: At least 19 flights were delayed for anything between 45 minutes and 4.5 hours and several others were delayed by 15 to 30 minutes at the Kolkata airport owing to heavy rainfall. Large parts of the road leading to the airport, the stretch in front of the terminal as well as large portions of the apron area on the airside portion of the terminal went under water.
There were at least three diversions as well.
Two IndiGo flights — one from Hyderabad and another from Imphal — were diverted to Bhubaneshwar and another SpiceJet flight from Mumbai was diverted to Varanasi.
“Between 8am and 6pm, at least 13 departures and six arrivals were delayed. The average period of delay was between 45 minutes and 4.5 hours. There were other flights that were delayed by 15 to 45 minutes as well. However, there were no cancellations,” said airport director C Pattabhi.
Commenting on the water logging inside and outside the airport, a senior airport official said: “The approach road and a stretch outside the terminal in front of the arrival area got flooded as parts of the drainage system got choked because of the Metro construction work.”
“Water was constantly seeping inside the airside area of the airport. Hence, the more we tried to pump out water from inside, there was more water entering from outside. We had to keep the water channel gates shut for some time. But water never accumulated on the runway and there was no disruption in flight movement because of waterlogging,” said the official.
Early on Monday, an intense spell of rain caused major waterlogging on Jessore Road. A 1 sq-km stretch of Haldiram’s on VIP Road and Chinar Park on the New Town's main arterial road went under water as well, slowing down airport-bound traffic.

TOI found several flyers reaching the airport late and literally running inside the terminal with trolley bags. “It took us more than 1.5 hours to cross the Haldiram’s connector. I hope I don’t miss my flight to Bengaluru,” said a man in his 50s, running with two trolley bags.
Vistara and IndiGo issued travel advisories and waterlogging alert on Twitter’, asking airport-bound passengers to leave homes early.
At Haldiram’s-Chinar park crossing, there was knee-deep to waist-deep water. Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation officials said they had operated all pumping stations but even then couldn’t clear the mess. “Water from Haldiram’s junction can recede only after rain water from Chinar Park gets flushed out first to Bagjola canal. But with the Bagjola canal overflowing, pushing back excess storm water onto the road, not much could be done,” said a BMC official adding that a solution can be reached at when a drainage pumping station opposite City Centre II mall close to Chinar Park junction in Rajarhat is ready.
(With inputs from Suman Chakraborti)
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About the Author
Tamaghna Banerjee

Tamaghna Banerjee, a reporter from Kolkata, covers crime, aviation, human rights and politics. He has a keen interest in human interest and rural reporting. He has done his postgraduation in journalism and mass communication. He has a total of 14 years in journalism.

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