KOLKATA: The buzz went missing at the busy central business districts as well as other commercial hubs across the city and the streets wore a deserted look for the better part of Thursday — and almost emptied after sundown — as Kolkata waited anxiously for the ripple effects of Cyclone Dana.
The central business district across Esplanade, BBD Bag and Chandni Chowk remained largely empty, especially in the evening.


At 6 pm, most shops on Ganesh Chandra Avenue, Lenin Sarani, Chandni Chowk and BB Ganguly Street downed their shutters. The day ended early for almost 70% of shops in College Street as both owners and their employees rushed to board local trains back home.
There were fewer people at bus stops on SN Banerjee Road, Lenin Sarani, Central Avenue, Camac Street, AJC Bose Road and JL Nehru Road. Queues of auto passengers along Chandni and MG Road, where the average waiting time in the evening is 30 minutes, were absent. “I shut my shop at 6 pm as my workers who commute from the suburbs left around 4.30 pm. Also, there were hardly any customers,” said Sanjay Agarwal, who has a mobile shop in the Chandni area. Buses were hard to spot even in the evening rush hours. “This reminds me of the pandemic times,” said Rani Mondol, who took a train from Baruipur to be at NRS Hospital for her night shift.
Sealdah and Howrah stations, India’s busiest in terms of footfall and services, never looked so different in recent times. There were no local trains, no passengers, no hawkers and no porters. On Thursday evening, the commuters were almost reminded of the lockdown period.
Neither commuters who travel through Sealdah station nor railway staffers could recall the last time they saw the bustling station premises, which register a daily footfall of 12-15 lakh, look so empty. “It was eerie even as every corner was brightly lit,” said Subodh Kayal, a passenger who took a train to Barasat at 7 pm on Thursday.
Eastern Railway suspended local train services from Sealdah from 8 pm on Thursday till 10 am on Friday. It also cancelled around 200 local trains in the Howrah division, apart from more than 150 long-distance ones.
“The railways has been announcing the suspension of local train services on TV and newspapers. Accordingly, I decided to take a day off on Thursday. The effects of the cyclone are likely to subside by late Friday morning. I intend to take the Hasnabad local around 11 am tomorrow as services are going to start by 10 am. Hopefully, trains will not be crowded,” said Bubun Das, who works at GPO and takes a bus from Dalhousie to Sealdah to reach his Habra home everyday.
“We didn’t want any passenger or a train to be on the tracks during the cyclone,” said a railways official, adding: “The empty trains and the station premises are proof that we successfully disseminated information to one and all and sent out alerts well in time.” The Sealdah division covers six Bengal districts — North and South 24 Parganas, Nadia, Murshidabad, Kolkata and Howrah.
The last train from Hasnabad and Namkhana, which are close to the coastal areas in North and South 24 Parganas, departed for Sealdah by 7 pm on Thursday. “We sent out special messages for the Sealdah-Barasat-Hasnabad section because the cyclone impact is likely to be maximum in these areas. We want everyone to be home by 10 pm. Normal services in the section will resume from 10 am the next day,” an ER official said.
The whole day, ER and South-Eastern Railway staff members were busy taking precautions — securing trains at various stations like Sealdah, Howrah, Shalimar, Santragachhi and Kolkata.