In a little over a month, hundreds of families in a cluster of south Bengal districts have been driven out of their homes a second time.

When floods struck last month, destroying or damaging homes weeks before the Durga Puja, these families had to shift to government shelters.

On Friday, Cyclone Dana blew away or submerged the makeshift dwellings in which most of them have since been living, often protected by mere tarpaulin sheets, forcing them to move again — to makeshift government camps or relatives’ homes.

“Our one-storey house was washed away in last month’s flood. We set up a tent-like structure on the embankment of the Dwarakeshwar river,” said Manas Bag of Talit village in Khanakul, Hooghly.

“But the temporary shelter was damaged by the rain and gusts early on Friday. So, we had to leave again for a relative’s home.”

Bag said at least six families in his village had lost their homes on the night of September 17 when a large stretch of the embankment gave way to floodwaters.

Most south Bengal districts had recorded between 56mm and 95mm of rain in the past 24 hours, the Met office in Calcutta said at 8am on Friday. With heavy rain continuing to lash south Bengal through the day, Saturday’s weather bulletin is expected to contain a much higher figure.

Saheb Porey, a resident of Dhanyaghori village in Hooghly whose house was destroyed in the September floods, has taken shelter at a local high school with his wife and two children.

“We don’t have the money to rebuild our home anytime soon. I fled and took shelter in the school, fearing another round of flooding,” the 35-year-old van driver said.

Heavy rain and the release of huge volumes of water from the DVC’s barrages had caused massive flooding in parts of Hooghly, Howrah, Bankura, East Burdwan, and East and West Midnapore in September, leaving at least 4,000 people homeless. River embankments had caved in at 65-odd locations.

Members of 17 families, who lost their homes in the recent flood, at a relief camp at Kaiba Primary School in Hooghly district on Friday. Picture by Ananda Adhikari

Just when these families’ lives were limping back to a semblance of normalcy, around 500 of them from various parts of Arambagh and Khanakul in Hooghly had to be shifted to camps on Friday.

“If the rain persists on Saturday, more families may need to be brought to temporary flood centres,” an official in Hooghly said.

Hundreds of families in Howrah and the two Midnapores too had to abandon their homes a second time in successive months.

Pulok Roy, state PWD minister and Trinamool leader from Howrah, said Dana had forced the administration to relocate on Friday 1,700 people who had already been rendered homeless once during last month’s floods.

“Though there was no severe cyclonic storm today, the relentless rain has brought fresh hardship to people in areas such as Udaynarayanpur and Amta in my district that were badly affected in the September floods, too,” he said.

“We have already moved all those people whose homes have been destroyed or are deemed uninhabitable. Free food is being provided at the centres.”

The situation is similar in Panskura and Kolaghat (East Midnapore) and Ghatal (West Midnapore).

Chandicharan Jana, a farmer who lost his home in the September floods, recently set up a makeshift shelter in his village in Panskura. But after rain flooded his village on Friday, he sought refuge at the local high school for a second time.

“I built a mud house and have been living there since last week. But after the continuous heavy rain (unleashed by Dana), my new home became waterlogged. So I had to leave again,” Jana said.

Many farmers have not just lost their homes; their crops have suffered twice in quick succession.

“Although large tracts of paddy fields were affected by the (September) floods, at least 60 per cent of our crops had survived. But this spell of rain has caused the paddy stalks to collapse,” a farmer from Goghat in Hooghly said.

Agricultural fields, mostly growing paddy, were flooded at Kotulpur in Bankura when an embankment along a swollen irrigation canal was breached on Friday afternoon.

Agriculture department officials, however, say that Dana’s impact on crops is likely to be minimal. They plan to begin a survey on Monday to assess the losses.

“There is a risk of crop damage, especially if the paddy is ripe. However, (unripe) standing crops should remain largely unaffected,” said Nakul Maity, deputy director of agriculture in East Burdwan, Bengal’s rice bowl.

“We will determine the extent of crop loss after our officials conduct on-site assessments.”