STH activities : With students of Colby College (USA) -25Jan2018

Refer this post on the STH blog
Raising awareness about the environmental issues facing the Himalayas and also the severe landslide hazard problem of the Darjeeling-Sikkim region is one of the main roles of STH.
As such it was wonderful to talk to 19 students of Colby College (USA) once again in 2018. We hope that this will be an annual event for both STH and Colby.

Praful Rao
Kalimpong district,
Darjeeling-Sikkim Himalaya

STH activities : Focus on the CHIBO-PASHYOR landslide

Read about the landslide on this blog at 1, 2

Praful Rao,
Kalimpong district,
Darjeeling-Sikkim Himalaya

STH Activity : Seminar on 'Development paradigm in the Mountains : a case study of Darjeeling and Kalimopng districts' (09Jan2018)

Referring our earlier blog
Some of the key take-aways from the seminar are :-

• Small towns and hamlets in the districts are urbanizing at a phenomenal rate, often in an unplanned manner.
• As they do so, the industries viz educational vocations, tourism, construction which are replacing traditional means of livelihood (main agro-based work) are more vulnerable to disaster.
• The study clearly showed the huge growth of human settlements and expansion of the developmental activities (such as road construction) along steep slopes or in the vicinity of landslide areas which results in a net increase of disaster risk in these regions.
• There is a need for landslide hazard zonation maps where available to be made public and easily accessible so as to incorporate this into the planning process.
• In the final analysis, there is an urgent need to better manage development activities in the mountains to reduce disaster risk.

Praful Rao,
Kalimpong District,
Darjeeling-Sikkim Himalaya

STH activities : Drone over 'ZERO' landslide at Nimbong, Kalimpong (Youtube video)

STH has reported on the landslide at ZERO gaon at Nimbong, Kalimpong here.
On 03Jan2018, STH again went to the area and flew a drone over the landslide from various places around the slide. The 5 min video is below :-



Praful Rao,
Kalimpong district,
Darjeeling Sikkim Himalaya

An event of Note : Seminar /discussion on 'Development paradigm in the Mountains - a case study of Darjeeling/Kalimpong districts' - 09Jan2018

In Jun2017, a team of researchers from the Dept of Urban and Regional Planning, Colorado University (Denver, USA) spent three weeks in Kalimpong and Darjeeling districts studying development and associated hazards (see here).
Prof Andrew Rumbach who led the team will be sharing the findings of the study in the seminar.
We will also have a small expose' on Project 'LANDSLIP' during the event.

Praful Rao,
Kalimpong district,
Darjeeling Sikkim Himalaya