2 Kumrek accident survivors referred to Siliguri for treatment, One admitted at CRH

GANGTOK, 06 July: The four passengers, one of whom died on the spot, on board the SNT bus which met with an accident at Kumrek near Rangpo last evening, have been identified. It may be recalled that the SNT bus, hired by Golden Cross pharma company to ferry employees from the factory at Rorathang to Rangpo, had met with an accident at Kumrek at around 8 p.m. Thursday evening, veering off the road and plunging into the Rangpo-Sawney khola below. While none of the pharma company’s employees were on board the bus at the time, the driver, killed in the accident, appears to have picked up passengers on the way. While one of the passengers was also killed in the accident, three were injured and rushed to medical care. At the time of going to print yesterday, none of them, save the driver had been identified.
The two persons killed on the spot have been identified as Raj Kumar Sunar [44], a resident of Rangpo and the driver of the bus; and Man Bahadur Baraily, a resident of Bhasmey.
Biswajit Mandal, a resident of Murshidabad in West Bengal, and Pranay Verma of Narayan Tak in Kolkata were grievously injured and were first evacuated to Rangpo PHC and then referred to North Bengal Hospital in Siliguri for further treatment. The person injured in the mishap, Ratna Bahadur Lohar [20], who had minor head injuries and had fractured his thigh bone has been admitted at the Central Referral Hospital here at Tadong and will be operated upon soon. These details were shared by the Secretary, Transport Department, Tsegyal Tashi, while speaking to NOW! today.
The Secretary, along with other departmental officials, visited the accident site Friday morning and also called upon the wife of the deceased driver at Rangpo later. The deceased driver is survived by his wife and two children.
The spot where the accident took place is quite narrow and dangerous as the edge from where the bus fell off has nothing reinforcing it, the Secretary informs, adding that the bus was inaccessible thus hampering the rescue efforts from the road which is why officials had to call in the rafters from Chitrey to help recover the dead and rescue the injured last night.
The dead bodies have been sent to the Singtam Hospital for autopsy after which SNT will conduct the last rites, the Secretary informed.
A detailed investigation into the cause of the accident will be conducted by the department, the Secretary informs.

2 killed, 3 injured in bus mishap at Kumrek

GANGTOK, 05 July: The driver and an as yet unidentified passenger are feared killed in a road mishap reported late this evening from Kumrek on the Rangpo-Rorathang road. An SNT bus hired by Golden Cross pharma company to ferry its employees from the factory at Rorathang to Rangpo met with an accident at Kumrek at around 8 p.m. this evening, veering off the road and plunging into the Rangpo-Sawney khola below. 
SP [East], Dr. MS Tuli, confirmed that the driver, Raj Kumar Sunwar, and one more as yet unidentified passenger have been killed in the accident, while three more persons have been injured, one of them grievously.
The casualty list could have been much higher had the bus been occupied with its usual number of passengers. Propitiously, none of the Golden Cross employees were on board the vehicle at the time, the security personnel at the unit having turned away the bus without passengers when the driver was suspected of being in a dangerously inebriated state, sources inform. Those on board in the bus could have been acquaintances or passengers picked up along the route as the bus returned to Rangpo. The identities of those injured in the mishap had not been established till the time of going to print.
While all three injured persons were rescued with the help of rafters who had come in from 10th Mile, West Bengal, to assist the local residents and authorities in the rescue efforts, the dead bodies of two killed in the mishap have not been recovered yet with any further recovery efforts being too dangerous to undertake so late in the night. The injured were rushed to the Rangpo PHC where they were under treatment at the time of going to print.

Slide obliterates 3 buildings at Kumrek

LABOURER TRAPPED INSIDE COLLAPSED BUILDING RESCUED AFTER 8-HOUR BATTLE WITH DEBRIS AND SLUSH
RANGPO, 14 Aug: Heavy overnight rainfall pushed down a devastating landslide here at Kumrek, about 4 kms from Rangpo towards Rhenock, early this morning. The slide directly affected three buildings and presented a dreadful sight, the overpowering emotion of the day was of victory - in that the search and rescue efforts registered the miraculous feat of extracting a trapped victim after an 8-hour long struggle.
A two-storeyed building belonging to Somnath Dhakal was flattened by the slide; an under-construction building next to it belonging to Tenzing Sherpa was completely buried and a third building, belonging to Bhim Chettri, above the spot from where the landslide peeled away, has been rendered too dangerous to continue living in.