Follow up on the 14Oct2020 SHEAR Workshop on 'Exploring the potential of mobile phones and apps for the crowdsourcing of data and hazard communication' : STH experience in using Whats App as a tool in this regard

STH formed 'HAZARD ALERTS  or HA' a Whats App group 5 years ago with the intention of alerting communities in the Darjeeling-Sikkim region on hazards, heavy rain, landslides and other relevant serious environmental threats. Since then HA has grown to become a large (228 members) group with people from all walks of life and all over the world being members even tho the majority are from the Darjeeling-Sikkim region. We have approx 22 PhDs, government officials, army officers, students, farmers and a large number of media personnel and NGOs in the group.
On 14OCt 2020, STH had taken part in a SHEAR workshop on 'Exploring the potential of mobile phones and apps for the crowdsourcing of data and hazard communication' where we talked about our experience in HAZARD ALERTS and how it has grown into a major information and alerting hub in the region.
The 5 min long presentation on HA made by Dr Nima Doma Lama and myself is now on the SHEAR You tube channel
SHEAR has also written an academic paper and made a summary video that have now been published.

Praful Rao
Kalimpong District,
Darjeeling -Sikkim Himalaya

STH activities: Participating in IMI's Webinar on Current Disaster Discourse and Lessons from Chamoli (27Mar2021)

 IMI's (https://inmi.in/) 3 hr webinar on Lesson's from the recent Chamoli disaster in Uttarakhand was held online on 27Mar2021 with experts from Uttarakhand (Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology) as well as Dr Saibal Ghosh from GSI's GHRM, talking about the disaster.
STH helped pool in the resource persons as well as participated - talking about the need to standardize Landslide Reporting in the Indian Himalayan Region (IHR) using the Landslip Reporting form  and the Landslide Reporting App developed by Project Landslip .
Dr KR Vishwanathan, representative of Practical Action (India) spoke at length about the landslide reporting tools.

The webinar was attended by representatives of the State Disaster Management Authorities of Uttarakhand and Sikkim as well as IMI representatives from across the IHR.

Praful Rao
Kalimpong district
Darjeeling-Sikkim Himalaya

February 2021 - Rainfall of the region

 

We have been going steadily deficient in rainfall after the monsoons of 2020 and February 2021 was no exception - the first half of the month was bone dry thru out our region. Rainfall thereafter, was mostly restricted to SIKKIM and is published ( in mm) date-wise below:

15 Feb - Sankalan 3.8 Singhik 2.8 (North Sikkim)
16Feb - Mangan 7.1 Sankalan 5.6mm (North Sikkim) Gangtok 2.1 (East Sikkim)
             Damthang 5 (South Sikkim) Gyalsing 3.2 (West Sikkim)
17Feb - Mangan 21.3 Sankalan 24.6 Gyalsing 1
18Feb - Gyalsing 18.2
19Feb - Kabi 21.4
25Feb - Kabi 4.8
26Feb - Gangtok 14.8 Mangan 7.2 Gyalsing 6.4 Kalimpong 2 Darjeeling 1.3 Siliguri 3.5
27Feb - Gangtok 30.7 Mangan 28.3 Gyalsing 17.6 Dentam 11.8 Kalimpong 3 Siliguri 1.8 Darjeeling 0.2
28Feb - Gangtok 44.8 Mangan 38.3 Gyalsing 3.6  Namthang 2

Praful Rao with Shreya Gurung
Kalimpong district
Dajeeling-Sikkim Himalaya