Large parts of the city went underwater on Wednesday morning and some pockets remained waterlogged well into the afternoon.
Stretches of Central Avenue, Amherst Street, BB Ganguly Street, Phears Lane and MG Road were waterlogged past noon.
Camac Street was flooded during the morning rush hour, creating problems, especially for pedestrians who had to dip their office shoes into ankle-deep water. A stretch of the Park Circus connector, near Science City, was flooded till late afternoon.
A portion of the road under the Dhakuria bridge was underwater. Waterlogging was also reported from Paharpur in Garden Reach.
In a video message sent during the afternoon, Kolkata mayor Firhad Hakim said wards 127 and 128 in Behala were waterlogged.
KMC officials said the sluice gates through which rainwater is drained out into the Hooghly — a portion of the city’s rainwater, especially from north and central Kolkata, is drained out this way — were closed between 2am and 6am because of high tide in the Hooghly. That led to flooding and it took time for the water to recede once the gates were opened.
KMC officials said waterlogging was restricted to a “few pockets” and the water had been drained out from most parts of Kolkata by 9.30am.
“I saw parts of BB Ganguly Street waterlogged even around 4pm. Vehicles were moving slower than usual,” said a man who was visiting an acquaintance.
A Kolkatan whose office is in the Dalhousie area said a stretch of the road opposite Lal Dighi — in front of Stephen House — was waterlogged.
The Telegraph spotted children wading through ankle-deep water in Bowbazar on their way home from school, their shoes fully under the water.
On a stretch of the Park Circus connector near Science City, vehicles avoided more than half the width of the road that was waterlogged.
A KMC official said: “We could not open the sluice gates (there are about 25 sluice gates in operation) between 2am and 6am because of high tide in the Hooghly.”
As the sluice gates remained closed, the rainwater started to accumulate in the underground drains and once the drains were filled, the roads above became waterlogged.
The waterlogging disrupted the arrival of goods vehicles to markets. A man who runs a tea stall at an office in Chandni Chowk said he could not buy biscuits and cookies from the wholesale market in Sealdah as vehicles had yet to reach when he went there in the morning. “The trader there said trucks were moving slow or were stuck,” he said.
The kerbside of roads were waterlogged in many more places. People walking on pavements were getting drenched if a vehicle went over the waterlogged portion at high speed.
The KMC’s drainage pumping station on Tiljala Road recorded 101mm of rain between 10pm on Tuesday and 6am on Wednesday. The drainage pumping station in Kalighat recorded 58mm of rain and the one in Thanthania recorded 47mm of rain during the corresponding period.
