Labourer flight from North Sikkim bottlenecks at Chungthang

Scenes at the Chungthang helipad on Sunday, 25 Sept 2011. Around 400 people, mostly labourers engaged at various project sites in the district are camped in Chungthang waiting for a chopper flight out. While food supplies are holding thus far, the lack of clean drinking water and adequate sanitation are a big worry.

GANGTOK, 25 Sept: Most of the people from villages around Chungthang have come down to the sub-divisional town where several [seven on last count] relief camps have been opened by the army, residents and the administration.
Prem Subba has come down from Thangu [beyond Lachen]. There is massive damage, he says, on the road towards Thangu. He says that the situation at Zema III is also dangerous.
Sonam has also come down from Thangu. According to her, no one is staying in the houses due to fear of structural failure. Most people are sleeping in tents at the camps.

 Meena Rai and her entire family of 5 are also residing in the relief camp opened at the Gurudwara having come down from a nearby village.
Chungthang has also experienced a large influx of labourers on an exodus. These are not just workers employed with the hydel project here, but also those from road and other construction projects further north. They have walked it to Chungthang and are awaiting helicopter evacuation.
While there are as many as 14 helicopters flying sorties, getting everyone out is easier said than done. Despite many labourers having been evacuated, there are still around 400 of them stranded at Chungthang, still desperately trying to get a lift back home in one of the choppers. The fact that no flights could be operated on Friday and Saturday has led to further crowding.
Apart from labourers belonging to the hydel project companies there has been a mass exodus of labourers from the places above Chungthang as far north as Dombang where a road construction company is engaged in the construction of a road from Dombang to Gora La.
Balwant Rai and Sushil Singh, both from Benaras, inform that the military and labour camp up there has been totally destroyed. However, all 200-odd labourers there survived and managed to escape and take a 3-day trek down to Chungthang. The duo informs that the entire route down to Chungthang was littered with slides and is very dangerous. They further complain that there was no response to their predicament either by the company or the administration and that it was only at the Gurudwara where they found some shelter and food.