Heavy rainfall warning in North Bengal; 1,225 tourists evacuated in North Sikkim

Darjeeling: One person died and 5 were injured when struck by lightning in North Dinajpur on Tuesday. Heavy rainfall is set to continue for the next four days in the districts of Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri, Kalimpong, Alipurduar and Cooch Behar. The Indian Meteorological department has issued “red” and “orange” rainfall warnings for these districts of North Bengal.

While there is “red” rainfall warning (7-20 cm) in some places and over 20 cm in some places in Jalpaiguri, Alipurduar and Cooch Behar; “orange” rainfall warnings have been issued for Darjeeling and Kalimpong for the next 48 hours. A “yellow” warning has been issued for North Dinajpur, South Dinajpur and Malda, with lightning with gusty wind (30 to 40 kmph).

One Shanta Hembram (40) died and five of his family members were injured with their hut being struck on their hut at Ambari under Chopra Police Station areas of North Dinajpur district on Tuesday. The injured are undergoing treatment in Dalua Hospital in Chopra.

In the Hills, a truck was damaged with falling boulders on the under construction National Highway 717 (connecting Bagrakot in Dooars with Nathula in Sikkim). The incident occurred at around 9:30 am on Tuesday near Krishna Mandir via Reshi Check Post under Pedong Police Station, Kalimpong. However, there was no report of casualty. After around an hour, the debris was cleared and the road was opened to vehicular traffic.

Likhubhir and Bhalukhola on NH10 to Sikkim witnessed boulder slides from Tuesday morning, throughout the day. Traffickers were advised to avoid the NH 10 and use the alternate routes.

Evacuation of stranded tourists from North Sikkim continued with 1,225 tourists evacuated on Tuesday. “We had around 2,000 people stranded.

This includes around 1,580 tourists and support staff, including cab drivers, in different locations in Lachung and Chungthang. We had issued orders to hotels not to force checkout anyone.

Evacuation started on Monday. As we could not evacuate by air owing to inclement weather, they were evacuated by road.

The problem was the landslides. We constructed log bridges on them and requisitioned vehicles stuck between the slides for transhipment. As many as 1,225 tourists reached Mangan on the second day. Some have left for Gangtok also from Mangan. If the weather clears up, we will use 6 helicopters from Wednesday for airlifting the stranded tourists to speed up operations.

The Air Force and Army helicopters are on standby in Bagdogra,” stated Hem Kumar Chettri, District Magistrate, Mangan.

The DM has issued an order to close down all government schools in the Mangan and Dzongu blocks of Mangan district as many roads have become unsafe for students owing to numerous slide triggered by incessant and heavy rains, stated the government order.