Looking back, a year after the devastation in North district

Lest Sikkim forgets, WANGCHUK BHUTIA recaps the events of 18 Sept 2011 in North Sikkim, replaying the trauma and confusion of the following weeks…

The North district of Sikkim, the area closest to the epicenter of the quake that shook the state on 18 September last year, took the brunt of the temblor and even though it is the most thinly populated of all districts, posted the highest casualty figure of 42 dead. The earthquake claimed a total of 63 lives in Sikkim. Most of the damage and casualties were centered around the Chungthang, Saffo, Mangan, Dzongu, Lachen and Lachung corridor of the district. Official figures reveal that 80% of the houses in the district suffered damages of varying degrees and many families were displaced.
The Worst Hit
After the earthquake and the aftershocks had subsided, relief and rescue operations began in the earnest.
The worst affected of all habitations was the Bey village in Upper Dzongu where seven people were killed in a landslide which collapsed on their homes. This village, which had a cluster of 18 houses divided into two by Tholung Chu running through it, saw one part of the village consisting of five houses swept away when the earthquake shook loose the entire hill above it. The rest of the village was evacuated and around 120 people comprising of women, senior citizens and children shifted to a relief camps at Lingzya and in the home of ward Panchayat Nima Lepcha at 4th Mile Mantam.
The road to Bey village has still not been cleared owing to the many difficult and dangerous slides which have ambushed it.
The affected people of Bey and Mantam village were recently provided home construction sites at Chandey near Mangan Bazaar where 21 families have been awarded the allotment order along with the home construction allotment under Reconstruction of Earthquake Damaged Rural Houses (REDRH).
Chungthang was the worst affected town which suffered a trail of devastation and destruction left by the earthquake. A series of landslides triggered by the 6.9 strong tremor of 18 September brought down a pall of gloom with as many as 13 deaths registered in Chungthang alone, many claimed still missing and almost all houses and structures here having taken damage to some extent.
With most structures now unsafe and residents were insecure about returning to even houses which have suffered only minor damage, most slept in the camps and open spaces with a few beginning to return to their houses.
As per the preliminary report prepared by the North District administration at the time, the earthquake, which claimed 42 lives in the district, had completely damaged 432 RCC buildings and 643 kutcha houses in the district. Meanwhile, 2,965 RCC buildings registered major damage along with 5,398 kutcha houses. The earthquake also delivered a strong blow to the livestock in the district, killing 2,209 animals [Cows-307, Goats-210, Bulls-232, Pigs-250, Yaks-410, Sheep-800].
With North Sikkim being the worst affected district, 231 vehicles [bus, trucks, taxis and government vehicles] were utilized for transportation by the district administration.
As of now, the UDHD is in the process of preparing the post earthquake town plan of Chungthang. Meanwhile, orders have been issued for the dismantling of 13 buildings at Chungthang Bazaar which have been declared as unsafe. Rs. 50 lakh has been sanctioned for the construction of SDM quarter.
Connectivity
Officials of the Border Roads Organization responsible for the North Sikkim Highway had to battle difficult odds to open road access to Chungthang beyond Mangan. The BRO deployed more than 600 laborers and personnel and heavy machinery on this alignment and worked under very risky conditions to clear the roads.
Traffic to North Sikkim was severely compromised with all routes disrupted. Even telecom connectivity and electricity supply was completely disrupted with extensive damage caused to drinking water supply. Roads to Mangan [from Gangtok], Chungthang, Saffo-Shipgyer, Mangan-Singtam, Dikchu-Gangtok, Rakdong etc were blocked by several landslides.
The road to Chungthang was badly damaged at several spots at Theng and Toong which took almost one month to restore.
The road to Lachen was also badly damaged at several spots. Similarly, the road to Lachung from Chungthang was disrupted with several slides which took more than a month to restore where around 600 feet stretch of the road formation had been washed away at Khedum a few kilometres short of Lachung along with several other slides.
A few days after the earthquake, Sonam Lepcha of Shipgyer had trekked the treacherous Shipgyer-Mayong route to reach Mangan and travelled onwards to Gangtok to bring news of the earthquake devastated regions of Dzongu and worried by the rumors they heard of the situation in Gangtok. Relieved that Gangtok escaped the scale of devastation which visited North Sikkim, he carried word that his village and Rammam nearby had suffered severe damage and remained precariously placed. With no telecom network and disrupted transport, the village was completely cut off.
The list of damages included monasteries, churches and school building along with several other private and government properties. The Bop Primary School located between Chungthang and Lachung had collapsed and the school was temporarily shifted to Chungthang till the end of the 2011 session. Likewise, the Pentong Primary School in Upper Dzongu also suffered multiple damages. The Tholung Monastery in Upper Dzongu suffered multiple damages while Ringhem Monastery above Mangan suffered 70% damages. The Ship Kunzang Choling Monastery at Shipgyer-Ramom GPU and Chungthang Monastery also sustained major damages due to the earthquake.
Chief Secretary Karma Gyatso laid the foundation stone of Ringhem monastery on 24 August last month. In the first phase Rs. 1 crore has been sanctioned for the reconstruction of the monastery.
Tholung Monastery in Upper Dzongu, meanwhile, still awaits reconstruction and renovation work. The posts and pillars of the monastery are almost tilting and appear structurally compromised even as most of the partition walls have collapsed and severe cracks have developed in the remaining partitions. All the belongings of the monastery have been shifted to the Sheda building attached to the monastery. The public and the Gumpa Committee have requested the concerned authorities for the early construction of the monastery [ NOW! issue of 05 Sept 2012].
Also damaged was the Ship Kunzang Choling Monastery wherein a total of 15 surrounding houses - “Thasyap” - of the monastery had developed major cracks running clear through the walls. Some of the walls had collapsed and a house had visibly tilted in the monastery complex.
Among the damages suffered by the monastery were also two chortens in the complex which had collapsed.
The residents of Shipgyer had been preparing for the inauguration of the two-storey Sheda building, with only the power and water supply left to be installed. This building too had been severely affected and had tilted.
One floor of the additional RCC structure of the monastery collapsed during the earthquake, damaging the community centre where the Sheda was housed.
Setting aside their personal losses, the villagers began temporary protection work at the monastery to protect it from further damage. Speaking to NOW!, Panchayat President Yeshey Lepcha had informed that the monastery was last renovated in the year 1982.
It is informed that Rs 3 crore has been sanctioned for the reconstruction of the Ship Kunzang Choling Monastery. Also at Ship, 14 houses which had been damaged have been provided space for reconstruction at a nearby agricultural land.
For the Chungthang Monastery, Rs 2 crore has been sanctioned by the state government for its reconstruction and Rs 5 lakh has already been allotted to the members of the monastery as reconstruction token.
With regard to the schools, for the Bop Primary School, which had collapsed in the earthquake and is currently being run at the community centre, construction of a new building at the same location has been sanctioned but work is yet to begin. At the same time, although reconstruction work at Pentong Primary school is going on, work has been hindered due to bad road conditions.
It may be mentioned here that the Sakyong Pentong area is still cut off and even reaching Bey is not possible at the moment.

The Missing
While all of North Sikkim, its district officials, army and other personnel were occupied with the death toll and damages, the one thing that went unnoticed was the number of missing people. The moment the roads were cleared, the district headquarter town of Mangan was clogged with families from villages in-and-around Mangan and Dikchu anxiously awaiting news of their loved ones and relatives employed in the Teesta Stage III hydel project.
Missing, it may be mentioned here, did not necessarily mean feared dead and had their families worried because there had been no communication with them since the earthquake. Communication networks in most parts north of Mangan had been disrupted and remained so for quite while.
The district officials had only a list of the dead and the injured brought to the hospitals; there was absolutely no information as to how many were missing. The district officials were pacifying people with the hope that these ‘missing’ persons could be safe in Chungthang.

The Forgotten: Labourers
With many missing and several dead, large sections of the remaining labour force of the hydel project companies up in North Sikkim started fleeing home. Ever since the day of the earthquake, the laborers, mostly from West Bengal, Bihar and Nepal, had been trickling into Mangan on foot from Chungthang and other places. They were, to a large extent, the forgotten lot; neither the administration nor their respective companies seemed to have organized anything to return them home.
It is ironic that in a situation as the one that they found themselves in, they had not been paid for the past 4 to 5 months and did not have a penny in their pockets. They also discovered that there was no arrangement made by the administration or anybody else for their journey back home.
With no money, most were seen just sitting at the Mangan taxi stand, hoping for a lift out. It was the Mangan Nagar Panchayat and the bazaar community which organized hot meals and tea for them which saved them from starving…