Trapped in flood, kids get jumbo lift - Elephants ferry 50 schoolchildren in Jalpaiguri

Jalpaiguri, July 17.TT: Two elephants today took 50 children in flood-ravaged Jalpaiguri district to school so they could sit for their exams.

The children hailed from the marooned Khairkata area, which was cut off from the Nagrakata block when a bridge got washed away yesterday, were ferried on the elephants around 9am today.

“Had the elephants not come, we would have not been able to sit for our unit tests that started from today. The ride was thrilling. I am going to stay in the house of a relative in Banarhat for the next few days and appear for my exams,” said Alam Sarkar, a student of Kalabari High School.

Of the five blocks that suffered the brunt of yesterday’s flooding in Jalpaiguri, Nagrakata was the worst hit. This morning, the water began receding as there was no more rain.

Most of the children study in schools in Nagrakata, 5km from Khairkata village, and Banarhat, 15km away. The children going to Banarhat took buses to reach their schools from Nagrakata.

The trained elephants, Surjya and Phulmoti, were hired from the forest department and they made six trips carrying the children on their backs across the swollen Kuchi Diana river that had washed away the only wooden bridge connecting Khairkata with Nagrakata.

Two students, Parmila Begum, of Class IX in Kalabari High School, and Fazlul Haq, in Class VIII at Sulkapara High School, will have to return to the village after the exams get over at 4 pm.

“We have been promised that the elephants will be there to take us back to our village. We do not have anywhere to stay other than our homes and we will have to return,” Fazlul said.

The elephants yesterday ferried medicines, food and water to Khairkata.

Manoj Basu, a health worker in the village, said there was fear of an outbreak of enteric diseases. “We are getting reports of some cases of enteric diseases and we are giving people ORS packets and medicines,” he said.

There are about 300 families marooned in Khairkata.

Jalpaiguri district magistrate Smaraki Mahapatra said eight relief camps had been set up in Rajganj, Mainaguri, Jalpaiguri (Sadar), Mal and Nagrakata blocks.

“The army has begun setting up a temporary suspension bridge over the Kuchi Diana at Khairkata. We have over 13,000 people at the camps,” she said.

The chairman of the North Bengal Flood Control Commission, Narayan Chatterjee, said today that the damage to the river embankments could cost the state over Rs 6 crore.

“There have been damages to embankments and guide walls on the Teesta, Jaldhaka, Mahananda and Reti and Sukriti and we have estimated the loss to be over Rs 6 crore. We are going to sit with the district administrations in Siliguri, Jalpaiguri and Cooch Behar and try and carry out the repairs as soon as possible,” he said.