Storm-struck begin new year amid ruins

Prithvijit Mitra & Subhro Maitra | TNN



Raiganj: Residents of Mehendigram in Raiganj block had gathered at the thakurdalan — the centre of the village — for its annual bash on Tuesday evening. It had started with a musical programme and was to end with a feast, the ritual for Dham puja observed a day before Nabo Borsho.
Villagers, mostly Rajbanshis, had been gearing up to end the day with a sumptuous meal of mutton curry and rice when the wind began to whistle through the trees. Before they knew it, the wind had turned into a gale. Within minutes, it took the form of a furious tornado.
Standing helplessly under the only concrete shed in the hamlet, villagers watched their huts being flattened by a swirling, monstrous column of dust that spun viciously. It rushed aimlessly from one end of the village to the other, razing everything on its path. Tin sheds were flung hundred yards away, mud walls were blown into pieces and trees uprooted by the dozen. By the time it ended, around midnight, Mehendigram resembled an ancient ruin. Villagers rushed back to salvage belongings that had been hurled away by the killer wind. But the bash had saved their lives.
There was one casualty. Fiftythree-year-old Magni Rajbanshi, who had stayed back home to look after her grandchildren, was buried under the asbestos roof of her hut.
The death toll in Bengal from Tuesday’s tornado has increased to 42. It includes 15 children, and 24 women. Around 2 lakh have been rendered homeless by the tornado that raged through the Raiganj, Karandighi, Hemtabad, Kaliaganj and Goalpokhor-2 blocks....published in TOI on 16.4.2010