Landslide destroys house, blocks Rongli-Dalapchand road

GANGTOK, 02 July: The model house of Sirju Gurung at Mandir Dara, Dalapchand which got completely destroyed in a landslide on Sunday night. SDM Rongli along with his team visited the spot on Monday for assessment of damages. Ex-gratia relief will be paid as per the SDRF norms.
The landslide has also blocked the Rongli - Dalapchand road at Mandir Dara. It may be mentioned that another house at Pam Basti in Chujachen was also damaged badly on Sunday night.

Lachungpas losing patience with BRO and BSNL indifference

GANGTOK, 30 Sept: The patience of the people of Lachung is wearing thin in the face of the repeated collapse of infrastructure under the charge of Border Roads Organisation and BSNL. Connectivity, both, road and telecom, is seriously challenged in this North district village and the people, even after making relaxations for extreme weather conditions, are convinced that their privation is made more severe because of “ignorance and negligence” of the two agencies.
Pema Lachungpa, a Lachung Dzumsa coordinator, while addressing a press conference here last Friday, said, “By taking lesson from last year’s earthquake devastation, these two organizations should have made some special strategies and should have been better prepared for the monsoon to keep the area connected, but no such strategy was made.” The photographs [alongside] of the roads from Lachung to Chungthang that he shared with the media illustrate the condition of road infrastructure there.
As a result, Lachung has been cut off, both by road and for telecommunication, for the past more than two months ever since a massive landslide tore away the road at Khedum, a few kilometers out of Lachung towards Chungthang. While this stretch, despite attendant dangers, offered the option of transshipment, the rash of landslides triggered by the heavy showers which began on 21 September have littered the Lachug-Chungthang road with more than 30 landslides, at least a dozen of which are major.
Transshipments are no longer an option, and people are required to walk the entire distance to Chungthang now and even the roads beyond it are not open for regular traffic.
As things stand, Lachung has been without roads, electricity or telephone for the last two months and the terrain and weather notwithstanding, the people remain convinced that BRO and BSNL could have delivered better had they not decided to “ignore” the situation, Mr. Lachungpa adds.
To explain his contention in more detail, he pointed out that BRO has not maintained enough manpower, equipment or even fuel for its machines on this axis to ensure quick repairs and timely restoration.
To illustrate this point in starker detail, he pointed out that the back-cutting works for road widening works on North Sikkim Highway [from Phengla above Gangtok onwards] has been underway for the past 20 years and the organization has covered barely 20 kms.
He underlined that the people from his area need to travel to Mangan or Gangtok for medical emergencies and that the disruption of the road has posed severe problems.
Speaking on the communication situation, he informed that Lachung has telephone services for barely a month in a year. In this regard, he mentioned that the people have approached BSNL authorities several times to demand better services but seen no action in this regard so far.
Given the challenges of the terrain, the people remain convinced that fibre-optic cables can be maintained properly and have demanded that the area be serviced by satellite link instead which would make the service “landslide proof”. This suggestion was reportedly turned down by BSNL on the grounds that it would take around Rs 1 crore to install such a system, an investment which BSNL appears uninterested to make. He rued the situation, adding that despite several directions from the state government, these organizations have not been taking the problems of their area seriously.
“If this situation continues, then the people of North Sikkim will hold a meeting to discuss these problems and take some strong action… now, the people will remain silent,” he said.

Official count lists 82 houses as damaged in North Sikkim flurry of slides

MANGAN, 30 Sept: The latest flurry of landslides which began collapsing across North Sikkim on 21 September and continued for almost another week, the situation has just about stabilized a bit now, apart from 21 lives it claimed in the district and the extensive damage it caused to the road network, has, as per official data, damage 82 houses in the district. The road network is in tatters in the district, the electricity and water supply severely hit and the 21 lives lost – 20 in the Chungthang sub-division and one fatality due to a landslide reported from Kusung village in Upper Dzongu.
Landslide damage to houses has been reported from three Blocks – Chungthang, Passingdang and Mangan.
As per data compiled by the SDM Office, Chungthang, twenty houses have sustained landslide damage in the Chungthang sub-division, where 20 lives were also lost and livestock also killed. Also damaged by a landslide is the kitchen shed of Bop Primary School here. 80% of damaged houses are kutcha houses.
The data from Mangan BAC reveals that 52 houses have been damaged by landslides at villages under this BAC.  Out of 52, seven houses are recorded as fully damaged.
The figures for BAC Passingdang in Dzongu posts the number of houses damaged at 10 - at Kusong, Tingvong and Lingkoo along with one abandoned school at Kusong.
What is also recorded is that major damage has been to cultivated land.
The district administration has released immediate ex-gratia as per norms, staggering the compensation among fully damaged, severely and partially damaged categories.
Officials further inform that several under construction CMRHM houses have also been damaged.  The BDO Dzongu, Dr. SR Lepcha, informs that under construction CMRHM houses have been extensively damaged in the Rabong-Hee Gyathang area. Meanwhile, the road to Tingvong in Upper Dzongu is expected to be cleared for traffic any day now with restoration work underway full swing by the Roads & Bridges Deptt.

Landslide Mayhem up North

Jhoras break banks around Chungthang, pour landslides claiming 20 lives

The devastation at the GREF camp at Rangma Range above Chungthang. The Barey Khola broke its banks here on Friday evening and poured tonnes of debris on the camp, claiming 12 lives and burying two tipper trucks, two ambulances, one ‘407’ carrier, one Ashok Leyland Truck and one compressor of the BRO apart from tearing through built up property here. Photographs from two angles are displayed here to reinforce the scale of devastation.

Pegong near Chungthang where the khola, the flood scars of which are visible in pic, tore through the ITBP camp here claiming four lives on Friday evening.

Kalapathar above Chungthang where on life was lost of the Friday flurry of slides. In the background is the Teesta Stage II dam site where three lives were lost.

WANGCHUK BHUTIA

CHUNGTHANG, 23 Sept: A litter of landslides peeled off the hills in and around this North Sikkim sub-divisional town of Friday evening as a series of jhoras broke their banks and unloaded tonnes of debris on ill-fated habitations below. While the entire district has been severely hit by landslides, the four major slides around Chungthang have collectively claimed 20 lives, with the flash flood on the Barey Khola flowing through the 86 RCC camp of the Border Roads Organisation at Rangma Range 4 kms beyond Chungthang towards Lachen alone claiming 12 lives.

While the landslide at Rangma Range is reported to have occurred at around 7 PM on Friday, the one at the ITBP camp at Pegong, 3 km short of Chungthang, was reported between 5-6 PM, Kalapathar near Chungthang at 5 PM and the right bank of the Teesta Stage III project site at around the same time.

Among the casualties are 4 ITBP personnel at Pegong, 12 BRO personnel at Rangma Range, one at Kalapathar and three employees of the General Mechanical Workers Company at the Teesta Stage III dam site.

Two injured persons from General Mechanical Workers Company, Rajveer Singh and Rajdeep Singh were rescued on Saturday morning but unfortunately, one succumbed to his injuries while being flown to Gangtok yesterday. 

Of the dead bodies recovered so far, five have been identified: Bid Bahadur at Kalapathar, three bodies from Rangma Range identified as Sanjay Gurung [resident of Nepal], Montu [resident of Uttar Pradesh], Rohit [resident of Darjeeling] and a JCO of GREF.

Meanwhile at Rangma Range, six bodies have been recovered thus far. Those feared killed at this location are: SK Sikhiya with family, Asstt. Somu Kernal, JE Administrative, JE Civil, NT2 Raj Narayan, Manger Ram, Siddhiram and family.

Two persons Bishvanath Ram [resident of Bihar] and Amarjeet Singh [resident of Punjab] are still missing from General Mechanical Workers Company.

Four ITBP personnel have also been reported missing at Pegong where one RCC building and two Kutcha houses have also been damaged.

There has been substantial damage to the infrastructure and property as well with six houses and one ICDS centre washed out at Kalapathar. These houses belong to Nedup Bhutia, Pratima, Ram Kumar, Payching, Raju Tamang, Rojer Rai. 

As the slide destroyed their houses, the victims could not save any of their belongings.

“We have not been able to save our belongings inside the house. All our earnings, our hard work has been wiped out by the slide”, said Kipa Bhutia of Kalapathar whose house has also been washed away.

At Rangma range, kutcha houses belonging to Serkay Baidar, Bishnu Chettri, Gyaltsen Lepcha, Yangtse Bhutia, Damber Bahadur, Passang Diki, Suman Rai and Posi Sherpa have been damaged.

Similarly, the SSA kitchen shed at Bop Primary school which is 4 kms away from Chungthang towards Lachung has also been damaged and all the utensils and other belongings inside the kitchen have been washed away. 

The landslide also swept away three steel bridges across the Lachung Chu where around 60 workers of SEW company were stranded and evacuated on Saturday. Some of the workers were evacuated by a team of locals and administration headed by SDM Chungthang, Raj Yadav. 

The relief and rescue work is being continuously carried out by teams headed by SDM Chungthang with Zilla Adhyakshya North Khamsoong Lepcha, BDO Chungthang Jigmee Wangchuk Bhutia, SDPO Chungthang, GREF personnel, ITBP and Army personnel, Panchayat members headed by Lendup Lepcha and the local people.

MLA Lachen-Mangan TW Lepcha, DC North TW Khangsarpa and Sr SP North BK Tamang also visited the affected areas.

Water supply and electricity supply lines have also been badly damaged. At Chungthang, drinking water is being provided through tankers by Teesta Urja. Meanwhile, the affected families were provided with Rs. 10,000 each from the SDM Office today as ex-gratia payment for damaged houses under NC fund. The SDM office has also set up a relief camp at the Gurudwara in Chungthang for the affected families.

Apart from these, vehicles and machineries of GREF and SEW company have also been damaged. The Charten ward of Chungthang GPU has been cut off due to a steel bridge being damaged.

The SDM Chungthang, Raj Yadav while speaking to NOW! informed that the administration is focusing on relief and rescue at present and added that the buffer stock of rice is in place for Chungthang sub-division which will last for at least 15 days. He further informed that kerosene will be provided to every household Sunday. 

The Sikkim State Disaster Management Authority team headed by Kesang Nima Bhutia is also engaged in relief work and has provided tent, rain coat, gumboot, torch light etc. to the affected people.

Four of the recovered dead bodies were cremated here at Chungthang after post mortem at Chungthang hospital. The cremation was undertaken with the help of panchayat and local people.