Incessant rain from Wednesday night has thrown life out of gear in the district.

Worst affected are residents of underground fire-hit areas where the intensity of gas and smoke emanating from the cracks on the ground surface has increased manifold along with the risk of subsidence.

Pritam Rawani, a resident of fire-hit Liloripathra area in Jharia, said: “Around 400 families are living in continuous fear of subsidence because of the rains that started on Wednesday night. Toxic gas and steam coming out of the cracks in the ground have made life all the more difficult”.

The production in Bharat Coking Coal Ltd’s (BCCL) underground and opencast mines has also been affected because the slippery roads have made the transport of equipment difficult.

Rakesh Kumar, director-technical (operations) of BCCL, said, “Our production has increased to around 72,000 tonnes per day, but due to continuous rain since yesterday (Wednesday), we are expecting a production loss of around 20 per cent.”

Goldy Jaiswal, a sales representative of a pharmaceutical company, said his field visits had been adversely affected by the rains.

The attendance in schools and colleges also dropped on Thursday.

Rocky Agarwal, a resident of Jharia, said, “When I woke up at 5.30am today (Thursday), it was drizzling. But as soon as I prepared my daughter for school, the intensity of rain increased and thus I decided not to send her to the school as she has been suffering from cold.”

The wet weather also spoiled shopping plans for Diwali.“I had planned to purchase some firecrackers for my children today (Thursday), but could not go to the market becauseof the rains. If the weather doesn’t clear up tomorrow (Friday), I will have to buy crackers at a higher rate compared with the market price from our local shop,” lawyer Bishwajit Bhattarjee said.

Several areas such as Tapovan Colony, Matkuria and Barmasia besides the Jharia Dhanbad main road near Bhagatdih were waterlogged.