Kolkata (West Bengal): With the resumption of the tunnelling work for the underground section of the East-West Metro corridor, authorities here have begun shifting some residents of the Bowbazar area of central Kolkata to nearby hotels and guest houses, as a precautionary measure.
No damage has been caused to any house, some of which are over a century old, since the recommencement of work on Saturday, a senior official said on Tuesday.
"Residents living in the vicinity of the construction work have been evacuated, as a precautionary measure. These people have been put up in nearby hotels and guest houses," the senior official of the Kolkata Metro Railway Corporation (KMRC), the executing agency of the East-West Metro project, said.
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Tunnelling work for the 16.6-km-long rapid transit system, connecting the twin cities of Kolkata and Howrah, has been hampered in the past for various reasons, including the coronavirus-induced lockdown and an accident that had happened in August last year.
An aquifer had burst in Bowbazar in the congested lanes of central Kolkata during the tunnel-boring work on August 31 last year, following which several houses had collapsed, or suffered damages, owing to huge ground subsidence in the area.