A faulty air conditioner plant flooded the language division of Bhasha Bhavan at the National Library in Kolkata, reported The Times of India.
The room had to be evacuated on Tuesday after it was flooded with rain water as well as water leakages from the plant.
A member of the Bhasha Bhavan staff commented on the incident and said:
We were about to enter the language division when I noticed the entire floor was flooded. The 2,000 sq ft room was in ankle-deep water. Newspapers kept on the floor were soaked.
According to the report, a fifth of the library’s content may have been damaged, bringing the number of damaged periodicals and newspapers to as high as 60 thousand.
It took a couple of hours to remove the water and restore a semblance of normalcy to the room that houses 3 lakh books. We are yet to assess the damage but I believe around 60,000 periodicals and newspapers have been damaged.Saibal Chakraborty, National Library Staff Association secretary
Even though the original building is 200 years old, the affected area was constructed only a decade ago. The incident, therefore, has raised concerns regarding the maintenance of the building and issues pertaining to its capability to tackle water-logging.
Read the full report here.
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