4 dead in Kurseong landslide Sikkim’s only road cut off at night | ||||
| VIVEK CHHETRI AND RAJEEV RAVIDAS | ||||
Darjeeling/Kalimpong, June 17: Four members of a family in Kurseong, two of them children and the third a 45-day-old baby, were buried alive under debris from a landslide that followed a bout of torrential rain in the hills early this morning. The rain also triggered mudslides at three places on National Highway 31A, the last one at Birik that cut off Sikkim from the rest of the country around 7.30pm. The road is unlikely to be ready for traffic till tomorrow afternoon, Border Roads Organisation sources said. Earlier in the day, nearly 500 vehicles were held up for five hours because of debris on the road at 27th Mile and at Setijhora, 37km from Kalimpong. Heavy rain lashed Calcutta and south Bengal, claiming seven lives and flattening several mud-built houses. Weather officials said the districts could experience more rain for the next 48 hours but the situation should ease up in Calcutta by tomorrow afternoon. Nashim Akhtar, a 35-year-old hawker, and his family members were asleep in their one-storied tin house in St Mary’s area when mud from the mountainside came down on the dwelling around 3.30am. “The wife, Meenaz Begum, was the only survivor as she had gone out to attend nature’s call at that very moment,” said D.P. Singh, the superintendent of police, Darjeeling. The police along with the fire brigade and the civil defence personnel arrived at the spot around 4.30am. Nashim along with his son Mohammed Faisal and daughters 10-year-old Musurt Banu and 45-day-old Nusurt Banu were crushed to death in the bed, eye witnesses said.
On NH31A, the mudslides occurred at 27th Mile and near Setijhora, both in Kalimpong subdivision, between 6am and 7am. The BRO sources said the highway had been cleared of debris at Setijhora and the road on that stretch was opened to traffic at 6.30pm. But the BRO workers had a tough time clearing the mud at 27th Mile, 25km from Kalimpong, and restoring traffic on the road because of a pick-up van that had got stuck in the slush. “Two cranes struggled to retrieve the van from the slush. We managed to clear the road by 12.30pm,” said a BRO source. Some of the commuters stuck in the vehicles walked across the mudslides to avail of transport on the other side. “Around 500 vehicles were left stranded on both sides of the highway,” said an eyewitness said. The third landslide occurred at Birik, between Setjhora and 27th Mile, around 7.30pm. The highest rainfall in the past 24 hours was recorded in Cooch Behar with 54mm, followed by Kalimpong 38mm, Darjeeling 31.8mm and Gangtok 13mm. In Cooch Behar, the Torsha has eaten into the banks in the Takagachh-Rajarhat area. The panchayat pradhan of Karisal, Maksed Ali, claimed that at least 500 people were in fear of losing their homes and small patches of land if the erosion continued. |
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