IT RAINED LAST AFTERNOON

A precursor to monsoons this year has hail, heavy rain and high winds being experienced across the state.

The heavy downpour of Thursday flooded the Dikchu New Market area where vehicles had to be stopped from plying for a while. The culvert above the market was blocked by debris and slush from the 96MW Dikchu hydel power project site which caused the water to overflow onto the market area. Sludge flowed into town over the road and brought everything to a standstill till it rained.

Meanwhile, a blanket of hail covered Namchi this afternoon while high winds at Jorethang brought down a tree damaging a building around the same time. 

FROZEN!

Parts of South Sikkim were hammered by an intense hailstorm late Thursday afternoon. For a second straight afternoon, the district was pummeled by hail so hard that traffic was brought to a standstill as much because of the hailstones crashing down as for these getting congealed on the roads and making the surface dangerously slick and slippery. Traffic on the Namchi-Damthang axis for instance was held up for close to six hours and vehicles could move only after excavators were pressed into service to bulldoze the ice away from the roads.