People living in ‘very vulnerable’ structures that may collapse during a fierce storm will be evacuated and neighbours will be asked not to walk close to such structures, Kolkata mayor Firhad Hakim said on Friday. The mayor made the statement while speaking about the steps the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) is planning to take to tackle the possible effects of Cyclone Sitrang.
A KMC official said there were about 130 such vulnerable structures.
The KMC had pulled down portions of many of these houses before the monsoon. But people still live in these buildings. The official said the identification of such structures was a continuous process.
The Met office said in a bulletin on Friday that the storm was expected to head towards Bangladesh, sparing Kolkata the worst.
The city is likely to be rainy on Monday and Tuesday and get winds clocking around 55kmph.
“We will get a clearer picture on Saturday evening, but we want to stay prepared if the cyclone has a severe impact on Kolkata,” said Hakim, who held a meeting with senior officials of the KMC on Friday.
Hakim, who is also the state’s municipal affairs minister, met officials and heads of many municipalities later in the day. He asked the municipalities in coastal towns such as Contai, Digha, Haldia, Taki and Diamond Harbour to remain alert.
Officials and chairpersons of a few municipalities asked Hakim for tarpaulin sheets.
“We will evacuate people from buildings that are very vulnerable and may collapse. We will take care of their food for the days they will stay in camps. We will also run awareness campaigns around such buildings, asking people not to walk too close to them so they don’t get injured if the structures collapse,” Hakim said.
“There will be flooding in parts of Kolkata if it rains heavily, but our effort will be to drain out water as fast as possible,” said Hakim.
The KMC is keeping over 580 portable pumps in various areas with operators to run them on an emergency basis, he said. “Engineers have been asked to do trial runs of all the pumps on Saturday so that excuses, such as a pump does not have fuel, are not given on the day they need to be run.”
The lighting department of the KMC was asked to check if there were lamp posts from where electricity was being stolen.
If engineers come across any such posts, they have to file an FIR, Hakim said. The mayor added that all police stations had been asked to keep the keys to school gates so that residents of vulnerable buildings can be shifted to the campuses.
Kali Puja organisers should ensure that the pandals were made strong so that they do not collapse during a fierce storm, the mayor said.
