Kolkata, May 22, 2020: A 205-year-old church in Kolkata has lost a part of its legacy as cyclone Amphan battered the eastern Indian city two days ago.

The black weather cock atop the slender spire of the St Andrew’s Church on Brabourne Road in the heart of the city was blown away on May 20 by the century’s worst cyclone.

The Protestant church had earlier survived two world wars, the Spanish flu (1918-1920), several cyclones and partition of the Indian subcontinent.

Reverend Father Swarup Bar, the priest-in-charge, said a search party could not locate it until the evening of May 21. “We have only been able to trace a small piece of one of the wings of the cock till now,” he said.

The weather cock that weighed over 100 kilograms was built along with the church in 1815.

Three huge trees on its premises also fell during the cyclone, breaking the boundary wall on the western part of the iconic church facing Writers’ Buildings, the secretariat building of the West Bengal state government.

The church authorities fear that the weather cock has been broken into pieces and there is little chance that it would make a comeback atop the spire again.

“Everybody inside the church is, however, fine and nobody has been hurt in the cyclone. The main church is safe too,” Father Bar told The Times of India.

A church functionary said: “Some of us went out in the neighboring areas but could not trace it. The wind was so strong that the broken pieces must have been flown away very far.”

St Andrew’s began as a church for the Scottish Presbyterian Christians of the East India Company.

St John’s Church on Council House street has also suffered some damage with three trees inside the compound crashing down. “The pathways have been blocked and a portion of the boundary wall has collapsed,” said an official.

The Old Mission Church on R N Mukherjee Road, which has witnessed two world wars and withstood the Great Cyclone and “Assam Earthquake”, was also affected with several trees crashing on the premises and breaking the boundary walls.

Source: The Times of India