Skies open up, NH 31A slips out

ALL EIGHT TROUBLESPOTS ACTIVE, BIRIK DARA AHEAD OF LOHA POOL THE BIGGEST HEADACHE


ANAND OBEROI
GANGTOK, 08 July: With areas in Darjeeling district through which the NH 31A courses on the way to Siliguri receiving up to 24 cm of rain on a daily basis through most of last week, it was only a matter of time before the national highway started receiving slips and slides to stall traffic. And now the trouble-spots have started acting up with each one creating a traffic snarl of its own as GREF workers and machines clear the slush and debris.
The most imposing slide this season has been the one at Birik Dara, about an hour’s drive out of Siliguri [slightly short of Lohapool] while proceeding towards Sikkim. The slope above the highway here failed on 05 July and refused vehicular crossover for 24 hours. The 120 metre stretch remains active and unstable and requires constant pressing of men and machinery to keep clear. A considerable section of the highway on the valley side has also slipped away here with dislodged sections of retaining walls poking through the slush below.
GREF (BRO) has deployed five JCB excavators, hundreds of laborers, trucks and bulldozers at this section but this remains a bottleneck with waits of more than 2 hours becoming a routine delay for commuters here.
Met officials at the spot informed now that three districts of West Bengal – Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri and Coochbehar – have been receiving extremely heavy rainfall through the past week and add that the forecast for the coming week suggests that the weather pattern will continue. Even they advise against travel on NH 31A after dark, explaining that with heavier downpours forecast for the night-time, the slide zones are bound to act up, making such travel risky.
Daytime travel, while safer, is only tortuous for the long waits that one-way traffic over the trouble zones [the worst being Birik Dara] working in fits and starts in between BRO work on clearing the debris. Traffic jams snake upto seven kilometers on both sides at this spot sometimes.
Earlier, even transhipment was not an option since the slide was too dangerously active, throwing down boulders and slush on a regular basis, To avoid the traffic snarls, several drivers are opting for the Lava, Kalimong detour which takes about three hours longer than the normal travel time. Needless to add, complaints of overcharging have also coming up in this regard.
“We have issued warnings to all concerned authorities of very heavy rains forecast for the weeks ahead. Continuous torrential downpours have wreaked havoc at almost all the eight declared trouble-spots on NH 31A with new slides and mud-slips getting reported with every rain. Vehicular movement is definitely going to get disrupted,” Darjeeling district police personnel deployed at Birik Dara to manage traffic and people said.