Kolkata, Oct 23 (IANS): Train services in the Eastern Railways' Sealdah division will remain suspended for 14 hours from Thursday night as a precautionary measure ahead of Cyclone Dana's landfall, officials said on Wednesday.
The last train, including local trains, to be available in both the north and south sections of the Sealdah division, will leave at 8 p.m. on Thursday and the suspension of railways services in that division will continue till 10 a.m. on Friday.
Eastern Railways' Chief Public Relations Officer, Kaushik Mitra, said in a video message that the trains coming from the stations in the coastal areas like Namkhana and Hasnabad, among others, will not approach Sealdah after 7 p.m. on Thursday. He said that the decision is being taken keeping the passengers' security in mind.
According to him, in cases that the overhead wires snap, there is a possibility of trains getting stranded midway when the impact of Dana will be more, which will be hazardous for the passengers travelling by those trains then.
The state administration has asked the tourists at coastal tourism hubs like Digha and Mandarmani to leave those places by Wednesday evening.
Cyclone Dana is expected to make its landfall somewhere near Dhamra in Odisha between 11 p.m. on Thursday and 5 a.m. on Friday. Already, light to medium rainfall has started in some coastal districts in south Bengal since Wednesday afternoon.
Even the state capital, Kolkata, witnessed a spell of showers on Wednesday afternoon. The three coastal districts of East Midnapore, South 24 Parganas, and North 24 Parganas are expected to witness maximum and most heavy rainfall as an impact of the landfall of the cyclone.
Meanwhile, the West Bengal government has announced precautionary measures given the looming crisis. The educational institutions in nine districts of south Bengal are closed from October 23 to October 25. State-level and district-level control rooms have been opened. The fishermen are being barred from going to the deep sea. The district administrations have been asked to shift the people residing in the low-lying areas to safer places.