YangYang also called Yangang is a small town in South Sikkim. In it, is an even smaller village - Pathing which is mainly composed of people from the Gurung community. The livelihood of most in Pathing is agriculture and more recently, tourism. Pathing also lies enroute between the town of Ravangla and Yangang.
I came to know about a major, very active landslide in Yangang fairly recently and visited the place on 18Nov 2022 with a drone crew from Junkeri Studios.
We spent approx 2-3 hours photographing the landslide there, interacted with many of the affected people, taking drone foot-ages as well as interviewing many locals.
The landslide is apparently 30years old or more and no one seems to know how it was triggered.
However this year, despite the fact that rainfall was less, the landslide has become far more active and as we witnessed the rockfall has been continuous even after the monsoons.
It has impacted road communication between Ravangla and Yangang which is now closed. The farming community has lost a lot of land because of the shooting boulders, children's schooling has been adversely affected and the budding tourism industry in the area has now suffered a total set back.
I have placed a photo-essay on the landslide below but will be coming up with a short documentary on our visit to the landslide and findings - the video will be placed in our Youtube Channel
Lat/Long: 27° 17' 49.47" N, 88° 23' 25.5" E
Elevation: 1574m
My thanks to the people of Pathing village and Yangang for being such wonderful hosts and to all those who helped.
Praful Rao
Kalimpong district
Darjeeling - Sikkim Himalaya
&
Junkeri Studios
Kalimpong
9475033744
savethehills@gmail.com
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