Several trees were uprooted during Thursday evening’s thunderstorm and at least two fell on cars with people inside.
“The occupants had a miraculous escape and came out of the vehicles without a scratch,” a police officer said. One of the cars was on Palm Avenue and the other at Jodhpur Park, both in south Kolkata.
The weather forced Kolkata airport to divert six flights that were to land in the city. The departure of several flights were delayed.
A palm tree crashed into a car on Palm Avenue during the storm around 4.30pm. Sonali Debnath, who had come to Kolkata from her Bardhaman home for the treatment of her daughter in a city hospital, was inside the Renault Triber. Her nephew was at the wheel.
“My sister-in-law’s son was at the wheel and my wife was seated next to him. They were about to leave for the hospital when they heard a loud crash. They said the car jerked violently. On coming out, they saw a huge tree had fallen on my car,” said Sonali’s husband, Prabir Debnath.
The family came to Kolkata on Thursday morning.
“The incident happened in front of the house of my sister-in-law,” Prabir said.
“We bought the car less than three years ago. I am not worried about the damage to the car. We are extremely lucky that neither my wife nor my nephew was injured,” he said.
The palm tree that was uprooted had a hollow trunk.
A few kilometres away, at Jodhpur Park, a coconut tree got uprooted and landed on a moving Tata Sumo.
Police said the driver escaped unhurt.
“There were a few more reports of trees getting uprooted during the squall. There were reports of trees falling on Suresh Sarkar Road and Orphangunje Road. There are no reports of injury,” said an official of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation.
Less than a month ago, a full grown cotton tree had crashed into the balcony of a three-storeyed building on BB Ganguly Street shortly after cable work was started by a power utility by digging the footpath.
Naturalists and environmentalists blamed unscientific pruning of trees along roads and lack of maintenance for such incidents.
“Cyclone Amphan had caused havoc and damaged many trees across the city. Many were uprooted and many more got tilted and their grip on the soil weakened. Those trees are getting uprooted because of lack of assessment,” a naturalist said on Thursday.
Many expressed that more such accidents could happen in the season of thunderstorms and squalls.
Kolkata has witnessed many trees falling on cars plying through thoroughfares or parked under a tree during a thunderstorm.
Airport officials said six flights that were scheduled to land in Kolkata were diverted to other cities on Thursday.
“Flight operations were completely stalled between 4.45pm and 5.30pm because of the weather,” said an airport official.
Several flights that were to take off from the city were delayed and six incoming flights were diverted.
A flight each from Guwahati, Dhaka and Imphal were diverted to Bhubaneswar. A flight each from Mumbai and Shillong were diverted to Ranchi. A flight from Yangon in Myanmar was diverted to Chittagong in Bangladesh, airport officials said.
The flights were diverted between 4.57pm and 5.30pm, said an official.