Kolkata's Firhad Hakim visits site where houses develop cracks amidst Metro work

Kolkata: City Mayor Firhad Hakim Thursday visited Bowbazar area where cracks developed in a number of buildings, likely by the ongoing construction of the East-West Metro corridor and said an expert team headed by the director general of the building department of Kolkata Municipal Corporation will assess the damages.

The DG building will hold meetings with Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation Limited to find a way out and gauge the fitness of houses in the area, Hakim, also state minister for transport and housing, said.

He said there is negligence by KMRCL in Wednesday's incident as it had assured of taking total engineering responsibility of the area, which had seen a similar occurrence about two and half years ago.

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In August 2019 underground vibrations of a tunnel boring machine had damaged several old structures in the same Durga Pituri Lane when an aquifer broke during tunnel boring for the metro rail corridor and water and silt had gushed in, leading to severe sinking of the ground. People had to be shifted to nearby hotels for days.

Hakim said that the soil is apparently yet to settle in the area, which has a large number of old houses, after the incident.

"An expert committee under the DG, Building, will begin its assessment at once. Some immediate steps must be taken," he said.

State Minister for Planning and Statistics, Tapas Roy said his family which lives in the area had spent a sleepless night as the neighbouring house had developed a crack.

Several families have already been evacuated from the affected buildings, but some of them refused to leave their houses. Several persons, fearing further subsidence even spent the night in the open.

The evacuees have expressed anguish about the recurrence of subsidence and concern over the future of the area.

A K Nandi, GM (administration), of KMRCL said its engineers are working overnight to repair the cracks and to ensure that no such fissures take place in future.

"Our first endeavour is to repair the cracks of the affected structures and also to see that no such fissures develop in future, while work on the construction work is continuing simultaneously ".

He said around 74 persons from around five affected buildings have been shifted to three hotels nearby.

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