Incessant rainfall triggers landslides; cinchona worker dead in Mongpu

Darjeeling: Torrential rain threw life out of gear in the Darjeeling Hills and Sikkim. A cinchona plantation worker died in Mongpu when an uprooted tree crashed on her. In another unfortunate incident, a tourist from Bihar and the driver of the vehicle he was travelling in were washed away by a stream in North Sikkim.

Juna Tamang, a 45-year-old worker was working on the cinchona plantation in Mongpu on Thursday morning when an uprooted tree crashed on her. Local residents pulled her out and rushed her to the Mongpu hospital. She was referred to the Rongpu Hospital, which declared her "brought dead".

Two persons were swept away at Toong Naga Rail Khola near Mangan in North Sikkim. As per local residents, 63-year-old Uday Kumar Singh, a tourist from Patna, had slipped and fallen into the swift flowing mountain stream and was washed away. The driver of the taxi, Karna Bahadur Tamang, dived into the stream trying to save the tourist and was washed away too. Police, local residents later fished out the body of Tamang. Search is on for the tourist.

Incessant rainfall has triggered numerous landslides on the National Highway 10 connecting Sikkim with the plains of Bengal. The landslides occurred on the Sikkim side. The road was damaged at Machong, Parakha, Barapatheeng, Linkey, Rolep and Rongli via Rolep in the Pakyong district. Efforts to clear the debris on a war footing were stalled owing to continuing rainfall with debris falling constantly. Vehicular traffic came to a standstill owing to the landslides.

"There are no reports yet of landslides on the West Bengal side," stated S Ponnambalam, District Magistrate, Darjeeling.

Moderate rain is likely to continue over most parts of North Bengal and adjoining Sikkim during the next 4 to 5 days, states the MeT office.

"Very heavy to heavy rain (7-20 cm) at one or two places over North and South Dinajpur, Jalpaiguri, Alipurduar and Cooch Behar districts; heavy rain (7-11 cm) at isolated places over Darjeeling, Kalimpong, and Malda districts of North Bengal and East, North and West districts of Sikkim very likely to occur during the next 48 hours. Heavy rain is likely to continue at isolated places over northern parts of North Bengal during the subsequent 72 hours," stated Dr Gopinath Raha of IMD, Gangtok.