Heavy rain in West Bengal kills one

Kolkata, Oct 26 (IANS) A man was killed and another injured in a house collapse here Saturday following heavy overnight rain that lashed the southern districts of West Bengal including Kolkata, disrupting train and vehicular movement.

A 22-year-old man was killed and another injured when a part of a multi-storey building collapsed on Cotton Street, police said.

Roads and lanes at more than a 100 places witnessed ankle deep to knee deep water-logging throwing traffic out of gear.

The Met office said many places in East Midnapore, Burdwan, South 24 Parganas districts received rainfall in excess of 100mm till Saturday afternoon.

"While the city received an average of 105 mm rainfall, Diamond Harbour (South 24 Parganas) received the most with 213 mm. Several parts of Burdwan, Birbhum East and West Midnapore and Howrah have received more than 100 mm rainfall," said G.C.Debnath, director, Regional Meteorological Centre.

The Met office has issued a warning of heavy rainfall in these districts with the situation expected to improve Sunday afternoon onwards.

With large parts of the city witnessing water-logging, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee now on a visit to north Bengal, called up urban development minister Firhad Hakim asking him to take remedial measures.

City mayor Sovon Chatterjee said the civic body was working on a war-footing to bring the situation under control.

Train movement was also affected with the South Eastern Railway cancelling, diverting or short terminating several long distance trains due to the heavy rain and floods in coastal Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal.

Howrah-Secunderabad Falaknuma Express, Howrah -Yesvantpur Duronto Express scheduled to depart from Howrah Saturday have been cancelled.

Santragachi-Kochuveli Weekly Puja Special and Santragachi-Chennai AC Superfast Weekly Puja Special scheduled to leave Santragachi Saturday too have been cancelled.

The following trains have been rescheduled:

Howrah -Hyderabad East Coast Express has been rescheduled to leave Howrah at 2.00 p.m. instead of 11.45 a.m. Saturday and will run through a diverted route via Kharagpur-Tatanagar-Jharsuguda- Bilaspur-Nagpur-Ballarsha-Kazipet.

Haldia-Chennai Express has been rescheduled to leave Haldia at 1.00 a.m. instead of 11.30 a.m. Saturday and will run via Kharagpur-Tatanagar-Jharsuguda-Bilaspur-Nagpur-Ballarsha-Kazipet.

Apart from setting up emergency controls in all the four divisions of Kharagpur, Adra, Chakradharpur and Ranchi, special patrol teams have been deployed to inspect sensitive locations like bridges and cuttings and maintain a strict vigil on tracks near water bodies.