Continuous rains for the past week have disrupted life in Sikkim, with landslides affecting the supply of piped water in the capital town and its surroundings, as well as damaging private property and roads, leaving 200 tourists stranded in various locations across the North Sikkim district, officials said on Wednesday. The rains are expected to continue, and the Met Department has issued a red alert in Himachal Pradesh, warning of heavy to very heavy rainfall caused by an upper air trough stretching from east Uttar Pradesh to Arunachal Pradesh across Bihar, sub-Himalayan West Bengal, and Assam.
Heavy rains were also reported in neighbouring north Bengal and Bhutan. Water supply in Greater Gangtok has been impacted by a major landslide at Ratey Chu, officials said, damaging pipelines. Officials from the Public Health Engineering Department said that work is being done to restore the water supply, but it could take another two days. The authorities have issued a warning to the people of Greater Gangtok to use water wisely until the restoration is completed.
Heavy rains have damaged NH-10, which connects the Indo-Bangladesh border via Siliguri to Gangtok, at 19 and 20 miles between Singtam in East district and Rangpo in Pakyong district, officials said, blocking a lane of the main highway that connects Sikkim to West Bengal. Priority work is being done in the area to clear the landslides. However, the heavy rains have made the condition of the stretch of highway unpredictable, as more landslides are possible at any time, and authorities have advised commuters to take alternative routes via Pakyong and central Pendam to reach the West Bengal border.
The administration has cancelled permits for tourist vehicles to north Sikkim, which has a number of tourist destinations, due to roadblocks caused by rains in several areas, officials said. The 200 tourists were stranded in North Sikkim, according to Sikkim Tourism Development Commission (STDC) chairman Lukendra Rasaily, and STDC, in collaboration with a travel organisation, dispatched taxis to bring them back here. They will be transferred to Siliguri, West Bengal, once they arrive.
The tourists have been lodged in their hotels for the past two days, and STDC has asked travel and hotel operators to take special care of them, according to Rasaily. In North Sikkim, the highway to Mangan was closed at Phodong and Namok. The road to the district is also blocked at Sokpey, Rakdong, and Tintek Khola near Dikchu, according to officials, and work is underway to clear the debris. Some houses in Marchak village on the Singtam-Mangan highway have been damaged, and those affected have been relocated by the district administration.
The road to Lum, Dzongu in North Sikkim has also been closed after a major slide washed away the village’s only connecting road. Due to a massive landslide near Chunthang, tourist destinations Lachen and Lachung are completely cut off from Gangtok. The pounding rain has hampered restoration efforts, they said. On Sunday night, a tourist vehicle carrying five West Bengal tourists was hit by a landslide on B1 (North Sikkim Highway). They were all rescued by North Sikkim police after suffering minor injuries. Heavy rains are also lashing neighbouring districts in north Bengal and Bhutan. Rainwater from Bhutan has washed away 150 metres of a road in the Jharna bustee area of Jaigaon, Alipurduar.
(source : PTI)
