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| The spot in Rolep village where some of the houses that were swept away once stood. Picture by Prabin Khaling |
Rolep, June 7: Seven persons, three of them children, were killed when landslides struck a village in East Sikkim after a spate of rain lashed the area last night. Four members of a family were also among those wiped out in the early morning strikes.
The unfriendly weather and terrain — the village is at a height of 3,500ft — coupled with at least other 10 landslides on the Rongli-Rolep road hampered rescue operations. The first group of SSB jawans from Rhenock, 12km away, arrived nearly four hours after the three mudslides hit Rolep village.
Four injured persons, including two children, were brought to the state hospital in Gangtok, 85km away in the evening.
The first landslide at Rolep was around 4.30am followed by two more, and in half an hour six houses were swept away. Only one house was a concrete structure while the others were made of wood.
Sixteen-year-old Amrita Rai and her brother Sunant, 7, survived the landslide which claimed their parents and two siblings. They were as Purman Rai, 62, his wife, Manmaya, 50, and their two children, Tika Devi Rai, 12, and Susan Rai, 9.
“My brother and I were sleeping on the same bed and when the mud came rolling down, the bed overturned and the walls of our house breached open and we were flung out. But our parents and sister and brother were buried,” said Amrita. Sunant was admitted to a hospital in Gangtok.
The other deceased are Mahendra Prasad Rai, 40, Nihang Rai, 12, and Chandrakumari Rai, 32.
Padmalal Rai said he saw his wife Chandrakumari being swallowed by a huge mass of mud. A rumbling noise woke him up at 4am. “We immediately sensed that it was a landslide. My wife told me to get out our eight-year-old son Biswadeep. I started walking to the road just above the house with our son. She was following when suddenly the black mud swept her away along with the house. It was still dark and when the sun rose we could not find her,” Padmalal said. Chandrakumari’s body was recovered around 6pm
Nihang Rai was sleeping in the house of his teacher, Raju Pariyar, when he was killed. “The boy had been staying with me and around 4.30am, I heard a loud noise coming from above. It was getting louder every second. I opened the door and as soon as I stepped outside I saw a dark mass swiftly descending on me. I did not have the slightest opportunity to save the boy. As I ran, the house disappeared,” Raju said.
The first rescue team arrived in the village around 8.30am. The commandant of the 46th Battalion of the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), Anil Kumar Sharma, said 50 jawans were deployed along with the Sikkim police to clear the road and go to the village. “Our camp at Rhenock is 12km from Rolep and we had to pick our way carefully, clearing debris as we went, to cross the 10 landslides to reach the village. The last landslide was one kilometre from the village,” he said.
The subdivisional police officer of Rongli, Karma G. Bhutia, said the water and power lines had been snapped. “We will begin restoring the water supply to the village tomorrow with the help of polythene pipes, that is our priority,” he said.
The bodies of the victims were handed over to their relatives after post-mortems conducted by doctors from the health centre in Rongli at a local school in Rolep, Bhutia added.
The collector of East district, D. Anandan, said overnight rain triggered the landslides. The state government had announced an ex-gratia of Rs 1.5 lakh to the families of each of the deceased. “Chief minister Pawan Kumar Chamling will visit the spot tomorrow. Those injured will be paid compensation according to the nature of their injuries,” he said.
The assistant meteorologist at the Gangtok office of the India Meteorological Department, Michael Das, said there was a “rather heavy rainfall” in Rolep. “The area received 55mm of rain from 8pm last night till the morning,” he said.(TT)
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