KOLKATA (AFP)The Indian Army has been mobilised to help with the clean-up after a devastating cyclone hit the eastern city of Kolkata, as thousands on Sunday (May 24) protested again over power and water shortages.
At least 112 people were killed in eastern India and Bangladesh after Cyclone Amphanthe strongest storm to hit the region since 1999struck on Wednesday.
Streets were flooded in Kolkata, home to 15 million people, while power lines were brought down and fallen trees blocked roads.
Authorities already grappling with the coronavirus struggled to clear roadssome which remained floodedas well as restore electricity and water to homes.
Police used batons to disperse the protesters as Mamata Banerjee, the chief minister of West Bengalof which Kolkata is the capitalcalled for calm.
"This is a huge disaster. We need to have patience, because nobody has seen such a disaster before," Banerjee said Sunday.
"We're not sitting idle ... A shortage of manpower stemming from the Covid-19 pandemic is hobbling relief and restoration efforts."
Around 200 soldiers from the Indian Army's Eastern Command joined more than 4,000 disaster relief personnel and local volunteers working on the streets, a military officer told AFP.
One of Asia's oldest botanic gardens was not spared by the cyclone, with more than 1,000 trees uprooted and hundreds more damaged, officials said.
"It ravaged the more than two-centuries-old Great Banyan Tree, one of the main attractions," said Kanak Das, director of Kolkata's Indian Botanical Garden, founded in 1786 by an East India Company officer. "The pride of the garden is lost."
The popular century-old Baobab Tree and the "Mad Tree"which locals say has leaves that appear to take different shapeswere also uprooted during the storm, Das added.
The cyclone also smashed into the Sundarbans, a Unesco world heritage site straddling India and Bangladesh famed for its mangrove forest, destroying farms and livelihoods.
Banerjee, who visited the Sundarbans Saturday, said the embankments of at least 25 rivers were breached, impacting at least 700 villages.
She warned that "large swathes of the Sundarbans could turn infertile as saline water starts seeping into the fields".
Gobinda Mondal, 35, who lives in a remote village in the region, told AFP the cyclone had "undone years of progress in curbing poverty in the coastal areas of the state".
"We're lost," he added.