Saturday, Jul 06, 2024 08:15 [IST]
Last Update: Saturday, Jul 06, 2024 02:42 [IST]
DARJEELING,: Continuous rainfall in the hills triggered a massive mudslide at Lebong
cart road here above Loreto Convent School halting traffic for about 2 hours on
Friday afternoon. Meanwhile, the Darjeeling Municipality has started a drive to
remove encroachments on drains to curtail water overflowing on the streets
The landslide
at Lebong road took place around noon with two Maruti Eco vehicles also damaged
completely with slush and debris coming from above all of a sudden.
Fortunately, no casualties took place as the vehicles were empty. Vehicles are
normally parked there to pick up children from schools. The particular area
sees a heavy movement of children during the morning and evening time with Loreto
Convent and St. Teresa School located below the road stretch.
The road
was cleared for traffic movement by civil defence volunteers, locals, police
and the Fire department.
A similar
landslide also took place at Hill Cart road near the railway station with no
casualties also reported there.
Darjeeling
Municipality chairman Dipen Thakuri said: “There were landslides in two places
in the municipality area here today and our team helped in clearing the area
along with providing things like tarpaulins. These are natural calamities and
one cannot say where it will take place however we have conducted a survey
where such of incident can occur with us asking the people there to stay
vigil”.
The municipality
has also issued helpline numbers 9434121738, 8942001049 and 9733719979.
Meanwhile,
following the heavy rainfall, many places at Darjeeling water is witnessing
water flowing on the road causing inconvenience not only to people but also
posing a danger for further landslides and landslips. Addressing this issue the
Darjeeling civic body today removed encroachment on drains - mainly slabs and
stairs built on top of it in front of six hotels at Coochbehar road here.
Darjeeling
Municipality councillor Nitesh Gurung said: “We had served notices to these
hotels a week back to remove the encroachments in the drains. With water not
being able to flow from the drains it was overflowing on the roads. They did
not remove the encroachments so we removed it today.”
Gurung added
that the civic body has identified more areas where such encroachments are
there and notices would be sent to such properties to remove it, failing which
the municipality will remove it. Today the encroachments were removed with the
help of excavators.
On the
hand, the NH 10 the main route connecting Sikkim and Kalimpong to Siliguri
remained closed even today following an order by Kalimpong District Magistrate
on July 2 not to allow movement from there for repair work. At present boulders
are being reported to be falling in different places on the stretch. It is
presently being estimated that NH 10 will remain closed for more than a week.
The road
from Kalimpong and Sikkim via Teesta road is also yet to be officially opened
with protection wall being made there.