www.kalimpong.info

www.thestatesman.net

Romit Bagchi

LAVA (Kalimpong), 31 AUG: The residents of Lava, a tourist spot around 30 kms from Kalimpong town, seem to be grappling with a queer fear of being strike-struck with the festive season approaching.

Flanked by hierarchical layers of the majestic Himalayas and dense with sky-piercing pines, the sleepy spot never ceases to beckon tourists from far and near. The mainstay of the local economy being dependent on tourism, the residents wait anxiously for the festive season, which, though mainly spanning over a month from Durga Puja to Diwali, drags on somehow up till March. (more…)

Save The Hills has a new post with a set of photographs documenting the damage to various areas of Kalimpong after the August 19th rains.

Here’s one image:

www.thestatesman.net

SILIGURI, 28 AUG: The National Highway 31A, which connects Sikkim with Siliguri, would remain closed to traffic from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. for five days starting tomorrow for repairs, said the state home secretary, Mr Ardhendu Sen today. “Traffic movement would be normal during the day hours,” he added.

The state government would prepare a comprehensive plan to combat frequent landslides in the hills, the home secretary said after completing his four-day visit to the Darjeeling hills to assess the restoration and rehabilitation works after the recent landslides. “A committee of experts would be formed to chalk out plans to combat landslides,” said Mr Sen. “The estimated cost of landslide damage is Rs 150 crore while the amount is Rs 430 crore in case of Aila,” he added.

“Around 450 houses were completely damaged in the landslides and 300 houses were damaged partly. Around 1300 families are now staying in the relief camps,” said the Darjeeling district magistrate, Mr Surendra Gupta.

The administration is trying to finish repairs before the puja so that the road conditions do not affect tourism during the puja,” said Mr Gupta.

The government would repair the Hill Cart Road, connecting Darjeeling with Siliguri, soon. Though light vehicles are plying through the road, heavy vehicles are still not allowed, the home secretary said.

The Telegraph

Ardhendu Sen inspects a landslide-hit portion of East Main Road at Chinna Dara in Kalimpong on Thursday. Picture by Chinlop Fudong Lepcha

People cross a makeshift bamboo bridge after a culvert was washed away by a landslide at Chinna Dara. Picture by Chinlop Fudong Lepcha

Kalimpong, Aug. 27: Home secretary Ardhendu Sen today said a thorough study would have to be conducted in the hills before a master plan was worked out to battle landslides.

The need to prepare the master plan for the Kalimpong subdivision was mooted at a meeting attended by the home secretary and a local NGO.

After attending a series of meetings at Deolo, about 5km from here today, Sen said: “We will have to identify an agency which can do the job and take the help of engineering colleges and universities.”

Save The Hills (STH), the NGO actively engaged in espousing the landslide issue, gave a power-point presentation on the damage caused by the mudslips in and around the town. Apart from Sen, principal secretary of disaster management M. L. Meena, Darjeeling district magistrate Surendra Gupta and Kalimpong subdivisional officer Amyas Tshering were also present at the meeting. STH president Praful Rao, who made the presentation along with colleague Upendra Mani Pradhan, said the master plan should be prepared after thoroughly studying the hill topography, land use pattern, building plans and drainage system.

“A comprehensive master plan is a must for a long term solution, although we must realise it will not be possible to stop landslides from occurring completely. It is also important to have a proper disaster management programme in place,” he added.

The home secretary said the subdivision had suffered a loss of Rs 80 crore in the recent landslides and 400 houses had been fully damaged.

The subdivisional officer and district magistrate, he said, would prepare a report on the basis of which Rs 25,000 would be given to each family whose houses had been completely damaged in landslides last week.

Two other immediate measures that the administration would take are diversion of streams to save houses and villages and construction of temporary pathways in places where bridges and culverts have been completely damaged. “For the long-term restoration, we are making an estimate,” said Sen.

On NH31A, the home secretary said the Darjeeling DM will meet the NHPC in a day or two to impress upon it the need to expedite the restoration of the road above its dam site at 27 Mile, about 25km from here. The landslide at that spot is the worst on the highway that connects Siliguri to Kalimpong and Gangtok.

The home secretary was in Darjeeling yesterday where he agreed to the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha’s proposal to add 1400 houses to the list of house owners who will be compensated for the havoc wreaked by Cyclone Aila in May.

The Telegraph

Darjeeling, Aug. 26: The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha today made the state government add more than 1,400 damaged houses to the list prepared by the Darjeeling district administration for compensation in the wake of the havoc caused by Cyclone Aila in May.

Morcha leaders submitted the list to state home secretary Ardhendu Sen, who held a meeting with district officials on post-Aila reconstruction work, along with relief secretary M.L. Meena.

Political observers said the home secretary agreed to lengthen the list of damaged houses keeping in mind the next round of talks to be held here in December on the statehood demand of the Morcha. (more…)

The Telegraph
AVIJIT SINHA

Siliguri, Aug. 26: Jaswant Singh’s book has repaid his debt to Darjeeling for sending him to Parliament: the hill district has been granted the status of a “state” in the rear flap of the tome.

Darjeeling is referred to as “the hill state” in the introduction to the author in the extended cover of the book, Jinnah, India-Partition-Independence, that gave the BJP the excuse to expel him.

The introduction, printed with a picture of Jaswant, reads: “He is a Member of Parliament, in the Lok Sabha, having successfully contested the 2009 elections from the hill state of Darjeeling.”

Rupa & Co, the publisher of the book, said the reference to Darjeeling as a state was a “mistake”. “This is the first time we have come to know of it and we feel it was a mistake. We often refer to places like Darjeeling and Siliguri as hill cities. It seems that things somehow got intermingled and the mistake was committed,” said Raju Burman, a Rupa partner based in Calcutta.

Asked whether Jaswant had provided the content for the introduction, Burman said: “Usually, we get the bio-data from authors and it is the people in our editorial who write the content. We had overlooked it but now that it has been brought to our attention, we will definitely look into it.”

The bloomer has come as music to the ears of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha. “Sometimes, it is nice to hear of pleasant mistakes,” said Harka Bahadur Chhetri, the publicity secretary of the Morcha, which ensured Jaswant’s poll victory from Darjeeling. “We are happy to hear it (the reference to the hill state) and if it is a mistake, we must say the mistake is a prophecy,” Chhetri added.

Jaswant could not be contacted at his residence in Delhi.

The Telegraph

Kalimpong, Aug. 25: Darjeeling district magistrate Surendra Gupta today denied reports that NH31A would be shut for a few days to facilitate the movement of army vehicles bound for Sikkim. The town had been agog with rumours about the supposed closure.

The commander of 764 Border Roads Task Force, which maintains the highway, too, denied any knowledge about the closure.

The Telegraph
RAJEEV RAVIDAS

Kalimpong, Aug. 24: National Highway 31A, considered to be the lifeline for Sikkim and Kalimpong, could well spell death for the economy of these areas in the autumn tourist season if the landslide-ravaged road is not repaired on time.

The rain-triggered landslides and cave-ins have reduced the highway to a potholed and slushy track at numerous places, leading to frequent traffic jams and increase in travel time from two hours to more than double for Siliguri-bound vehicles from here.

Transporters, travel agents and hoteliers are hoping the road will be repaired on time for the tourist season. That possibility, however, looks unlikely, though the Border Roads Organisation (BRO), which maintains the highway, has promised to carry out the repair on a war footing once the rain stops. (more…)

Kalimpong has been battered with landslides this year beginning with Cyclone Aila.

Save The Hills has prepared a comprehensive case study with details on various areas of the town that have been affected after the Aug 19th slides.

Please visit the latest STH post for the full write up.

Here’s an image from the site:

… and an excerpt:

1. Meteorological background.

While rainfall data for the months of May, June and July 2009 reveal that the district has had deficient rainfall, what is significant is that rainfall has been extremely erratic.

Thus, despite less precipitation, we have had major landslides this year coinciding with periods of intense, heavy rainfall:-

* 24 May – 27 May 2009 – Cyclone Aila – Resulted in 27 deaths and major destruction in Darjeeling and Kurseong

* 2 July 2009, 112mm of rain (in Kalimpong) – Resulted in some deaths and a large number of landslides in Nimbong (Kalimpong sub-division).

* 15 Aug 2009, 62mm of rain over 18hr period – Resulted in death and destruction in Kurseong and Kalimpong

* 19 Aug 2009, 189.2mm of rainfall in Kalimpong – Resulted in major destruction in and around Kalimpong town and several deaths in Mirik, Kalimpong subdivision and Sikkim.

Historically speaking, most of the major landslides in Darjeeling district have occurred towards the end of the monsoons i.e. when the earth is saturated with water and the trigger for landslides is a burst of high intensity rainfall.

Thus, severe landslides occurred in the district in Sep1899, Oct1968 and Sep2007.

As such the urgent need for preparedness to deal with recurrence of such devastation during Aug-Oct 2009.

The Telegraph

Kalimpong, Aug. 23: An assistant sub-inspector of police of the Rambi outpost was allegedly beaten up by a group of army personnel at the landslide-hit 27 Mile this evening.

Police said the incident happened when a convoy of army vehicles going towards Siliguri had jumped a queue at the landslide-hit stretch on NH31A where only one-way movement was allowed. The convoy allegedly tried to have its way when it was the turn of the vehicles coming from the opposite direction to cross the stretch, resulting in a complete traffic jam at 6pm. (more…)

The Telegraph

Kalimpong, Aug. 21: Over 4,000 people were affected and about 700 houses were damaged by the hundreds of landslides that hit the subdivision on Wednesday night.

The figures are preliminary and the final tally is expected to go up. Subdivisional relief officer R.P. Sharma said the worst hit was Block I among the three where 164 houses were fully damaged and 393 suffered partial damage. Block II was the least affected with nine fully damaged and 16 partially damaged houses.

The Kalimpong Municipality area also suffered extensively with 20 fully damaged and 285 partially damaged houses. In far-flung Block III that borders the Dooars, 40 houses were destroyed completely and 101 partly. (more…)

The Telegraph

Aug. 20: Five persons died in the Darjeeling hills and adjacent Sikkim as heavy overnight rain triggered scores of landslides, cutting off roads and blocking NH31A for several hours.

The rains also caused the rivers in the foothills to swell and two boys aged six and seven were swept away by floodwaters in Jaigaon in the Dooars. The Jalpaiguri administration has issued red alerts on the Torsa and Kaljani rivers.

A couple, Bal Bahadur Rai, 50, and Shanta Rai, 45, died when a hillside came crashing down on them at Okayati Tea Estate, about 35km from Kurseong town. Police said the landslide occurred around 2.30am.

According to Asha Mukhia Lama, the relief officer of Kurseong, more than 50 houses were damaged in the Mirik civic area and 70 were partially damaged. “Relief work is in progress. Several families both from the municipality as well as the panchayat areas are being shifted to safer shelters. Some have moved in with relatives,” Lama said. Relief centres have been opened at community halls, schools and club buildings where 15 families have been accommodated.

In Sikkim, two persons, one of them an 18-year-old boy, were killed in a landslide in Sombaria, about 110km from Gangtok. The district collector of West Sikkim, S. Pradhan, who is touring the affected areas, said the dead were Pushpamani Pradhan, 60, and Sameer Subba.

He said the two died when the car they were travelling in with eight others were hit by mud and boulders around 10pm yesterday. “They were buried under the mud but the others managed to escape with minor injuries,” the collector said. Houses, including government buildings like the block office at Sombaria, were partially damaged

In Kalimpong subdivision, 14 houses were swept away in Melli and traffic came to a halt for the good part of the day on NH31A that connects Sikkim. At Gitkolbong village near Lava, seven-year-old Asish Rai was buried alive.

Nine shanties were swept away by the overflowing waters of Mangar Khola at Melli, and another five by the Teesta. “We could not retrieve any of our belongings as we were caught unawares. The landslide happened after 1am. Luckily, we could rush out of our homes in the nick of time,” said Parimal Pal, who lives in Melli.

The highway was blocked primarily because of two major landslides at Melli, 20km from Kalimpong, and one at 28th Mile, 25km from the hill town. Traffic at Melli was partially restored around noon. Only vehicles from Kalimpong and Darjeeling on their way to Sikkim could pass. Cars from Siliguri were stuck at 28th Mile till 2.30pm when the highway there was opened for one-way traffic.

Sources in the BRO, which maintains the highway, said as many 12 landslides occurred in a 40-km stretch of the highway starting from Coronation Bridge, 22km from Siliguri. Hundreds of vehicles were stuck. “I negotiated many small landslides on the way from Siliguri, but at 27th Mile had to take a detour via Mungpoo-3rd Mile-Teesta to reach here,” said P.T. La when The Telegraph caught up with him at Melli around 2.30pm.

La took seven hours to reach Melli which otherwise would have taken a mere one-and-half hours.

The governor of Bengal, Gopalkrishna Gandhi, has extended his “condolences and concern” to all those affected. “At the same time, I would like to convey my appreciation to the district authorities and… Border Road Organisation which are doing their utmost,” Gandhi said in a media release.