CLEARANCE SAIL: Residents of Amherst Street take a boat ride to work on Tuesday morning. Picture by Bishwarup Dutta

Flights were grounded, streets were flooded and the underground Metro survived a fire scare as the early morning rain disrupted life throughout Tuesday.

No flight took off till 8am due to low visibility, fluctuating wind speed and pelting rain. A Calcutta-New Delhi Air Deccan flight with 111 passengers on board remained on the runway for over an hour, as rainwater seeped into the engine around 8.30am. Several flights were delayed.

The underground rail network that kept Calcutta afloat on Tuesday survived a scare around 11.15am when smoke was seen creeping out from under two coaches of a Dum Dum-bound Metro (TD-43) leaving Rabindra Sarobar station.

Passengers were evacuated, the station was emptied, the power supply cut off and a fire tender pressed into action. “Rainwater had entered a motor when the train was in a shed during the downpour. That caused a spark, followed by smoke,” said a Metro Rail official. Services between Tollygunge and Maidan were suspended till 12.05pm.

“If Subhendu Sarkar, the Rabindra Sarobar station superintendent, had not spotted the smoke, it could have sparked panic in the crowd,” said the Metro official.

Railway sheds, tracks and platforms went under water at various places in and around Calcutta. An Eastern Railway official said waterlogging at various places threw services on both Howrah and Sealdah divisions off-track. Twenty-eight local trains were cancelled at Howrah.

A South Eastern Railway official reported cancellation of six local trains from Howrah, the rescheduling of four long-distance trains and short-termination of seven trains due to waterlogging.

Circular Rail services remained suspended from 5am to 4.30pm.

On the streets, chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee was advised to abandon his Ambassador and take a non-bulletproof Tata Sumo to work. He decided not to brave a trip to the party headquarters on waterlogged Alimuddin Street, where his car had stalled on the morning of June 13.

The chief minister did make it to Nandan for his customary evening visit, but the Odeon folk dance and musical programme at the cultural complex was put off by a day.

It was a “rainy day” at most schools and colleges. At Presidency College, admissions to the science stream were cancelled and rescheduled for July 6. Bethune and Lady Brabourne followed suit. At St Xavier’s, inauguration of the first semester commerce classes were postponed till Wednesday morning.

The French examination at Calcutta University was cancelled, but the B.Tech exams were held. Late on Tuesday, Calcutta University decided to postpone all exams scheduled for Wednesday.