3 teachers from Tanek School killed in North Sikkim Highway collapse

MANGAN, 24 June: Three teachers of Tanek Primary School in North Sikkim were crushed to death when the car they were travelling in was caught in a crash of boulders at Dhamala Bhir under Ramthang-Tanek GPU of Kabi-Lungchok constituency on the North Sikkim Highway. The teachers were returning home from school this afternoon, when the vehicle, a Maruti A-Star [SK-03P-0853], was caught in the slide.
28 year old Dichen Bhutia from Kabi, Sonam Doma Bhutia, 31, from Ramthang and Karma Thinley Bhutia 41, also from Ramthang were killed in the mishap.  The car belonged to Ms. Dichen Bhutia who was driving herself, it is informed.
Upon hearing of the incident, people of the area and police personnel headed by SP North RN Yadav rushed to the spot along with the police personnel from Mangan and Phodong Police Stations and teams from District Disaster Management and NDRF.
The extraction proved a major challenge and two excavators and one JCB provided by hydel project developer Sneha Kinetic Power Project Ltd had to be plied for more than three hours before the boulders could be cleared from the spot and the dead bodies recovered.
Needless to add, the people and panchayats at the spot were vocal in expressing their dissatisfaction with the Border Roads Organisation, under whose watch the North Sikkim Highway comes, highlighting that no representative from BRO was at the spot today.