Cyclone Dana: Flight, train services resume in Kolkata

Kolkata: Flight operations resumed at Kolkata airport in West Bengal from 8 am on Friday after cyclone Dana made landfall on the coast of neighbouring Odisha, officials said.

Train services on the south section of the Sealdah Division under the Eastern Railway also resumed at 10 am after scheduled cancellations due to the cyclone, they said.

The authorities of the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport suspended flight operations since Thursday evening as a precautionary measure against cyclone Dana.

According to an Airports Authority of India (AAI) spokesperson, the first flight departed from Kolkata at 8.40 am.

IndiGo’s flight on the Kolkata-Imphal route was the first flight to depart from here, he said.

The first flight to land was of Vistara. It landed here around 8.45 am from Delhi, the AAI spokesperson said.

In a tweet, Kolkata airport said, "Flight operations resumed at Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport, Kolkata at 08:00 hrs, after it was closed for flight operation yesterday in view of the cyclone Dana." Meanwhile, train services in the south section of the Sealdah Division restarted at 10 am with the first train being a Sonarpur local, a railway official said.

Services will be restored gradually during the day, he added.

In view of the cyclonic storm, the Southeastern Railway (SER), which oversees routes in West Bengal, Odisha, and Jharkhand, has cancelled more than 170 express and passenger trains scheduled between October 23 and 27.

In addition, the Eastern Railway cancelled 68 suburban trains in the Howrah division for Friday morning, while all EMU local trains from Sealdah station were suspended from Thursday evening till October 25 morning.

Heavy rains packed with gusty winds lashed parts of southern West Bengal as the landfall process of the severe cyclonic storm Dana was complete on Friday morning.

However, the cyclonic storm continued to tear through the Odisha coast since midnight.