Still staggering from Friday fury of slides, BRO begins recovery mission

Recovery efforts continued into the third day on Monday at the Rangma Range on the Chungthang-Lachen axis where the 86 RCC HQ was destroyed by a flash-flood induced landslide on Friday evening. The task is difficult, given that the debris is 8 metres deep, 200 metres long and 60 metres wide.

GANGTOK, 24 Sept: The Border Roads Organisation has begun engaging its resources in the restoration of communication, especially, road communication, in the North district from today onwards. This engagement notwithstanding, priority also remains with the recovery of the mortal remains of the BRO personnel feared killed in the massive landslide which collapsed on the headquarters of the 86 Road Construction Company (RCC) of the BRO at Rangma Range about 4 kms beyond Chungthang towards Lachen last Friday. Twelve people, all of the BRO including family members, are feared killed in this incident. Two more bodies were recovered from the debris today leaving four bodies yet to be recovered.
The North Sikkim Highway meanwhile is a jumble of slips and slides of a scale so staggering that the BRO officials are not even hazarding a guess on by when the roads can be reliably opened for traffic. The Mangan to Chungthang axis has 36 slides, while the two roads out of Chungthang towards Lachen and Lachung have as many as 70 slides. With the 86 RCC headquarters completely destroyed by massive boulders, “as big as buildings”, brought down by Barey Khola which broke its banks on Friday evening, even this unit will have to be relocated first.
The series of flashfloods and landslides which have caused havoc in North district is also being said to be due to the earthquakes that the state experienced both last year and this year which destabilized the terrain. BRO officials state that while last year’s earthquake had weakened and destabilized the terrain and geographical morphology of the area, the tremor which coursed through Sikkim on the first anniversary of the earthquake further deteriorated the situation. Cloud-bursts shortly after led to saturation of the slopes and triggered a series of landslides and rains which led to water bodies in the higher reaches bursting as well, it is being speculated.
With the prospect of more rains the BRO has now put up sentries and early warning systems along the potential trouble zones and is also relocating its personnel.
Rescue and restoration works are going to present a major challenge with continuing rainfall and active landslides.
In fact, it is informed that last night too there was a landslide in North Sikkim. The slide at Rangma Range is said to be 200 metres long, 60 m wide and about 8 m in height.
While the BRO has suffered a major blow through his natural calamity there are many who believe that this was in the making. In fact this disaster is being said to be of the same proportion [in what it wreaked on the road network], if not more, to the Earthquake of 18 September, 2011.
It would take a minimum of 4 weeks to restore the roads up to Chungthang. Lanthey Khola and Singhik are informed to be major bottlenecks and the BRO is not venturing a guess yet as to when this section could be restored. However all available resources have been mobilized and the BRO is also getting help from the state government and the army. Following the restoration of communications the agency would begin assessing the extent of damages including in monetary terms.