DPA
New Delhi
The death toll from Cyclone Amphan in India and Bangladesh exceeded 100 on Saturday as thousands of residents in the eastern metropolis of Kolkata held protests and road blockades over the failure to have power and drinking water supplies restored.
Cyclone Amphan made landfall on Wednesday accompanied by high-speed winds and torrential rain. It destroyed homes and crops, uprooted trees, submerged vast tracts of land and snapped power, water supply and communication lines in both countries.
Collapsing houses and trees as well as electrocutions killed 86 across India’s West Bengal state and 15 in Bangladesh, according to disaster management officials.
West Bengal state capital Kolkata and affected coastal districts were the worst hit, with hundreds of thousands of people left without power and drinking water supplies.
Huge crowds of people gathered in various parts of Kolkata on Saturday, demanding the immediate resumption of the utilities.
"It has been over three days since the storm struck the region, but there is still no power and water. We and our children are suffering, but none of the civic bodies are responding. We are helpless,” a resident told broadcaster News18 Bangla channel.
In some areas, locals set up roadblocks, chanted slogans and held up banners that read, "We want water and power.”
State Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee appealed to people to remain patient, saying her administration was struggling to restore power and water supplies while tackling the spread of the coronavirus.
The state’s home department later requested Indian army support for the restoration of essential infrastructure and services devastated by the storm.
According to official sources, around 15 million people in West Bengal had been affected by the storm and over 1 million houses, mostly thatched homes, destroyed by the cyclone.
State disaster management minister Javed Khan said relief work had intensified, as workers were on Saturday able to reach the worst hit remote areas like the Sunderbans mangrove forest, shared by West Bengal and Bangladesh, that was severely hit by sea surges breaking mud embankments and destroying crops.
"There is massive devastation but our priority is to restore power and water supplies within a week,” Khan said.
"We are running around 1,300 kitchens to provide food to 600,000 evacuated people. Many who took shelter have now started moving back home, and we are providing them tarpaulin sheets to make their homes liveable for now.” Sunderbans Affairs Minister Manturam Pakhira said many villages had been inundated and flattened by the storm, causing major losses, and the infrastructure would have to be rebuilt from scratch.
Sunderbans is an ecologically fragile biosphere reserve area known for the famous Bengal tigers. It is an UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Environmentalists told domestic media that the damage to the infrastructure would take a heavy toll on the livelihoods of locals.
They warned that the coming months would see a huge migration from the Sunderbans region.
New Delhi
The death toll from Cyclone Amphan in India and Bangladesh exceeded 100 on Saturday as thousands of residents in the eastern metropolis of Kolkata held protests and road blockades over the failure to have power and drinking water supplies restored.
Cyclone Amphan made landfall on Wednesday accompanied by high-speed winds and torrential rain. It destroyed homes and crops, uprooted trees, submerged vast tracts of land and snapped power, water supply and communication lines in both countries.
Collapsing houses and trees as well as electrocutions killed 86 across India’s West Bengal state and 15 in Bangladesh, according to disaster management officials.
West Bengal state capital Kolkata and affected coastal districts were the worst hit, with hundreds of thousands of people left without power and drinking water supplies.
Huge crowds of people gathered in various parts of Kolkata on Saturday, demanding the immediate resumption of the utilities.
"It has been over three days since the storm struck the region, but there is still no power and water. We and our children are suffering, but none of the civic bodies are responding. We are helpless,” a resident told broadcaster News18 Bangla channel.
In some areas, locals set up roadblocks, chanted slogans and held up banners that read, "We want water and power.”
State Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee appealed to people to remain patient, saying her administration was struggling to restore power and water supplies while tackling the spread of the coronavirus.
The state’s home department later requested Indian army support for the restoration of essential infrastructure and services devastated by the storm.
According to official sources, around 15 million people in West Bengal had been affected by the storm and over 1 million houses, mostly thatched homes, destroyed by the cyclone.
State disaster management minister Javed Khan said relief work had intensified, as workers were on Saturday able to reach the worst hit remote areas like the Sunderbans mangrove forest, shared by West Bengal and Bangladesh, that was severely hit by sea surges breaking mud embankments and destroying crops.
"There is massive devastation but our priority is to restore power and water supplies within a week,” Khan said.
"We are running around 1,300 kitchens to provide food to 600,000 evacuated people. Many who took shelter have now started moving back home, and we are providing them tarpaulin sheets to make their homes liveable for now.” Sunderbans Affairs Minister Manturam Pakhira said many villages had been inundated and flattened by the storm, causing major losses, and the infrastructure would have to be rebuilt from scratch.
Sunderbans is an ecologically fragile biosphere reserve area known for the famous Bengal tigers. It is an UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Environmentalists told domestic media that the damage to the infrastructure would take a heavy toll on the livelihoods of locals.
They warned that the coming months would see a huge migration from the Sunderbans region.