Kolkata:
Flood fury raged in four West Bengal districts claiming nine lives over the past four days while the army was deployed in East Midnapore district to repair a 75-metre embankment, officials said today.
Eighty blocks are affected, over 83,000 hectares of crops destroyed and 71,000 makeshift and permanent houses damaged in the calamity, caused by days of heavy rainfall due to cyclone Phailin and water released into rivers by the reservoirs in Jharkhand.
The situation was grim in East Midnapore district where seven deaths have been reported, officials said.
An army column was deployed to seal a breach in an embankment on river Kangsabati that threatens the lower parts of East Midnapore.
"The flow of water along the breach is fast and sealing the breach is underway which poses a challenge. The troops from the Barrackpore army cantonment are presently working round-the-clock to restore the embankment even as additional columns from Sukhna cantonment are also on their way to the site," said a defence ministry release.
The state's disaster management department said that while the water level has gone down in parts of the affected districts, fresh areas were inundated.
"In all, 260 relief camps have been set up to shelter around 81,560 people in the flooded zones," disaster management department joint secretary Amit Chowdhury told media persons.
The floods triggered a political blame game, with the opposition parties taking the state's Trinamool government to task for "inadequate" and "partisan" distribution of relief and skyrocketing prices of edibles.
State Congress president Pradip Bhattacharya accused the government of indulging in politics over the availability of essential commodities in flood-hit districts.
The opposition Left Front alleged that the government was caught "unprepared" to tackle the crisis.
"Even where boats are there, their number is grossly inadequate. The relief that is being distributed is also insufficient," said Leader of Opposition Suryakanta Mishra.