Video: Cyclone Amphan Leaves Kolkata Airport Flooded & Damaged Beyond Repair
Video of Kolkata airport has been doing the rounds on social media which shows visuals of the airport's tarmac, runways and hangars completely flooded.
The deadliest cyclonic storm to ever hit the Bay of Bengal made landfall in West Bengal on Wednesday. Six hours of the cyclone wreaking havoc in Kolkata has left the city's airport flooded beyond belief and structures within have been completely destroyed.
Video of the airport has been doing the rounds on social media which shows visuals of the airport's tarmac, runways and hangars completely flooded. According to a report by NDTV, 12 people have lost their lives in West Bengal.
Twitter/@meghn888888
The person behind the camera starts the recording by saying, "Coming out of the hangar. Unfortunate. Everything gone, everything finished."
The video shows two hangars completely destroyed. However, airport officials have claimed that they were unused.
When Mother Nature goes on a rampage! Assumed Kolkata Airport footage? pic.twitter.com/j4joVzMJUS
¡ª Meghna (@meghn888888) May 21, 2020
The haunting words along with the devastating state of the airport is enough to place anyone in a state of panic.
He then moves on to record the airport's Air India office which is damaged beyond repair. He struggles to capture the inside of the destroyed office but his better judgement tells him to stop as the structure looks like it completely could fall at any moment.
Twitter/@meghn888888
Operations at the airport were shut till 5 AM today. For now, only cargo and evacuation flights are operating at the moment. Passengers flights have been suspended since March 15 due to the coronavirus lockdown.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said that the cyclonic storm Amphan is a worse tragedy than the COVID-19 pandemic. According to her, the cyclone could have caused damage up to Rs 1 lakh crore.
She said, "Area after area has been devastated. Communications are disrupted". Even though 5 lakh people were evacuated, the state was not fully prepared for the magnitude of the storm.
AFP
Cyclone Amphan is the strongest storm ever recorded to form over the Bay of Bengal and the first super cyclone in more than two decades. The last one was in 1999 in Odisha which claimed the lives of almost 10,000 people.
This video was sourced from social media; Indiatimes cannot assess the veracity of the video at this time.
