Hundreds of people complained that they had to go without food and sleep in the wake of the cyclone, which devastated Bengal, as their homes were flooded amid heavy downpours that continued to hit parts of the city. the state Thursday.

Cyclone Yaas, which made landfall near Dhamra port in Odisha, passed through neighboring state and Bengal on Wednesday, causing widespread destruction as it shouted on its way to Jharkhand.

Officials said the administration was doing its best to reach those in need, but inclement weather was preventing relief work in some pockets.

In the village of Kadupara, in the Sunderbans region, south of 24 Parganas, the water has reached waist level, forcing people to leave their homes with children in tow.

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“No one from the administration has visited us yet … I am starving, these children are starving,” said Lakshmi Majhi, a resident of Kadupara, as she stood in the flooded courtyard in front of her house. with her three children.

Majhi added, “The administration asked us to rush to the nearby school camp. But how can we get there? It will take me 30 minutes to reach the camp. How am I going to walk the flooded roads with my children, leaving my house and the business behind? “

Bapan Laskar, a migrant worker from the same village, said he was struggling to make ends meet amid the lockdown, and the cyclone compounded his woes.

“I work as a bricklayer in Calcutta, but the COVID-induced lockdown has deprived me of my livelihood. This cyclone, on top of that, partially damaged my house. I don’t know what to do, ”Laskar, who lives with his sick parents, said.

In cyclone-ravaged Kultali, villagers were seen lining up on the raised sidewalks, most of them without masks, even as water levels continued to rise due to the relentless rains.

“The saline water from the sea gushed out, broke the dikes and destroyed the crops we had taken the trouble to grow. Almost all of the villagers in the area depend on fishing and farming. With the ponds and farmland inundated with saline water, the inhabitants here look to an uncertain future, ”lamented one of the villagers.

However, Kultali MP Ganesh Chandra Mondal said disaster management staff had deployed to affected areas in southern Parganas to move all villagers stranded in relief camps, set up in school buildings.

Similar stories of misery were shared by residents of Purba Medinipur district, which also suffered the brunt of the storm.

In the tourist town of Digha, one of the hardest hit areas in the state, shops selling trinkets near the beach were ravaged, with shells, junk jewelry and other decorative items seen floating around in flood waters.

Several hotels in Mandarmoni, another seaside resort, also suffered extensive damage.

In Shankarpur, roads in some areas have been reduced to patches of boulders with telltale signs of destruction around.

An official with the Digha Development Authority said repair work on the damaged structures would begin in a day or two.

Mamoni Das from Ramnagar in Purba Medinipur broke down when journalists approached her.

Das, a middle-aged widow with no children, said she was rescued by army personnel after Wednesday morning’s blast razed her home in the blink of an eye.

“I am thriving on the puffed rice I managed to get from a nearby relief camp. With everything lost, I don’t know how to rebuild my life,” she added.