Good news for us: Landslide Early Warning Systems (LEWS) get a boost

BBC recently came up with this article on LEWS:

Rather coincidentally, almost a year and a half ago we had the same team from IIT Mandi at Darjeeling for Darjeeling Himalaya Initiative's (DHI) 'Call of the Mountains' event (below)

STH has remained in touch with the IIT Mandi team and hopes that before the next monsoons a few of the LEWS sensors will be in place in some landslide prone areas of the Darjeeling -Sikkim Himalayas.
In this regard, I am glad to report that interest on Landslides as a major disaster form has grown in the country and the world over and we know of a number of institutes and technologies now working on LEWS.
To name a few:
     * Project LANDSLIP working on developing a regional landslide EW system in the Darjeeling and Nilgiris region of India.
     * IIT Indore working in the CHIBO-PASHYOR area of Kalimpong on sensor based EW system.
     * GSI on community based landslide early warning system in Giddey (Kurseong). 
     * Amrita University on LEWS in East Sikkim.
     * LHASA system in Rio.
All in all, good news for us who live in landslide prone regions of the world.

Praful Rao
Kalimpong district
Darjeeling-Sikkim Himalaya

Rainfall data of the Darjeeling- Sikkim Himalayas - OCT2019

As can be seen, our region has started its descent into the long, dry months ahead, the impacts of which will undoubtedly be felt in the availability of water in the mountains which will in turn affect the water and food security of the Darjeeling - Sikkim Himalaya.
This chain of events will continue the now familiar viscous cycle of migration of youth to urban centers in search of better livelihoods and opportunities and the decline of the agriculture in our area.
There were no landslides in OCT 2019 in this area.
Regrets for not publishing rainfall of Darjeeling(Batasia) and Kurseong in the blog.

UPDATE:
Kurseong rainfall for Oct2019: 19.6mm

Praful Rao with Shreya Gurung
Kalimpong district
Darjeeling- Sikkim Himalaya