What landslides do to people: A home at Sherpa Gaon (village), Lava (Kalimpong district, W Bengal) on 28Oct2021 and 20Dec2022

This landslide at Sherpa Gaon (Lava, Kalimpong) occurred on 19Oct2021 at 3am, following two consecutive days of heavy rain. We met the owner Mr Wangdi Sherpa during our landslide survey on 28Oct2021 and reported on the slide in our canva database of landslides
28Oct2021

Yesterday (20Dec2022) I took this photo of the landslide and the home while passing thru the area.
A carcass of a home is remaining.
20Dec2022

Praful Rao
Kalimpong district
Darjeeling-Sikkim Himalaya

Pathing landslides gets a full feature on Prof Dave Petley's Landslide Blog

Prof Dave Petley's Landslide Blog is perhaps the most widely read 'online magazine' on Landslide Hazards in the world.
So it is wonderful that our reports on the Pathing Landslides as well as our two videos have been featured in a full length post on his blog yesterday.
The link is here
Meanwhile as I write the rockfalls and the landslide at Pathing continue relentlessly; the good thing is that the villagers and their livestock have shifted out of harms way even though their homes are still being pulverized by rocks.
I hope our efforts in highlighting their plight (and the plight of so many other rural communities which are affected by this very under-rated disaster form) will help them in some way.

Praful Rao
Kalimpong district
Darjeeling-Sikkim Himalaya
savethehills@gmail.com
9475033744

Mapping rainfall in our region: NEW (DAVIS) AWS at Todey Village in Kalimpong station and location of Automatic Weather Stations (DAVIS) and Manual Rainfall Gauges.

STH has been monitoring rainfall in our region for many years now and we publish these records each month in this blog. 

The above map shows the location of 6 DAVIS AWS in our region which will give real time weather information 24 X 7 and also the location of 4 manual rainfall gauge stations.
Real time weather includes

• Temperature (outdoor and indoor, max and min temp, graphical data)
• Rain (current rain, 24hrs rain, monthly rain, yearly rain, intensity of rain in mm/hr)
• Wind data ( 10min average, gusts and graphical data)
• Barometric pressure (& graphical representation of variation)
• Weather forecast.
  

How to get real time weather from the AWS
In order to get the real time weather from the 6 DAVIS AWS stations:

• Download and install the 'WEATHERLINK Davis Instruments' app from Google play store.
• You may have to register.
• Search for Davis weather stations in Kalimpong, Gangtok and so on and save them.
  
  
  Praful Rao
  Kalimpong district
  Darjeeling -Sikkim Himalaya
  9475033744
  savethehills@gmail.com
  
  
  

Raising awareness on impact of landslides on rural communities

Landslides are a cunning disaster form.
They mostly nibble and therefore their impact is not openly evident and it is often under-valued by governments and disaster management professionals alike.
Landslides are also very localized so one hill maybe totally stable and its people ignorant of the devastation being caused by landslides on an adjacent hill or mountain.
Add to this the fact that remote mountain communities seldom speak out and suffer in silence.
In an effort to raise awareness about this disaster form, SaveTheHills along with Junkeri Studio (Kalimpong) has produced two documentaries on the impact of the landslide at Pathing, a village about which we have blogged  a few days earlier.
The links are placed below:

• Gaguney Landslide (Part I) : Pathing (South Sikkim, India), a village on the edge
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9uxcI3NRXE&t=173s
  
  
• Gaguney landslide (Part II) : Pathing (South Sikkim, India), a village on the move
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6vlwdjLEB0&t=8s
  
  
  STH would like to thank the people of Pathing village and Yangyang and also all those who helped us make these documentaries.
  
  

Praful Rao
Kalimpong district
Darjeeling - Sikkim Himalaya
savethehills@gmail.com
9475033744