SaveTheHills activities: July 2022

Awareness programs
Raising awareness about Landslide Hazards and other related issues has been one of our most important roles and we have held or participated in hundreds of seminars and workshops at a variety of platforms from the grassroots to national programs.
In July 2022 we participated in two such programs: the Ban Mahotsav program held in Kalimpong Town Hall by the West Bengal Govt Department of Forests and the other organized by Anugyalaya DDSSS in a small village school in Pubung, Gorubathan block, Kalimpong district.

 

Pubung, on the other hand is a remote village in Pokhriabong GP, In Kalimpong district. There
Shreya and I participated in awareness program with some 30 odd school children and villagers in a small wooden village school and talked about rainfall patterns, importance of data keeping and community action during disasters. We distributed
a. Landslide Reporting Forms
b. A checklist in Nepali for action prior to heavy rain or major storms
c. A documentary film on Landslides (dubbed in Nepali) made for primary school children by ISRO and SaveTheHills
d. 5 large silpaulin (plastic) sheets for use by the community in case of evacuation during landslides

Landslide Early Warning project with IIT Delhi at a landslide prone location in Kalimpong
The DST has funded a landslide early warning project with IIT Delhi for monitoring landslides in Kalimpong.The project will implement a pilot prototype for a non-intrusive opto-electronic method of detecting and warning people about a landslide. This is expected to be a significant method of warning and alerting people about an impending landslide.

• The project site is around Dumsi Pakha, a densely populated landslide prone area in Kalimpong Municipality  where the opto –electronic sensors would be installed and monitors would be placed on the opposite hillside.
•  The project which would be operational before the monsoons of 2023 is led by Prof Subrat Kar of the Dept of Electrical Engg, IIT Delhi and will last for 2yrs.
  

SaveTheHills, a Kalimpong based NGO is the local partner.

Praful Rao
Kalimpong district
Darjeeling-Sikkim Himalaya

 

Visit by Dr Saibal Ghosh, GHRM - GSI regarding establishment of Landslide Early Warning System in Kalimpong district (16Jan2021)

Project LANDSLIP is a consortium of experts from UK, Italy and India which is working to enhance landslide-related hazard assessment in India at regional scales (e.g. >5 km2) in two main case-study regions, Nilgiris District and Darjeeling/East Sikkim Districts, focusing on weather patterns, landscape systems, rainfall thresholds and societal factors.
In doing so LANDSLIP has developed and established a prototype of a regional LANDSLIDE EARLY WARNING SYSTEM (LEWS) in Darjeeling district and in the Nilgiris which has started functioning in an experimental manner since the monsoons of 2020.
Dr SAIBAL GHOSH, Head of GEOHAZARDS Research and Management, GSI visited Kalimpong on 16Jan2021 to brief the District Magistrate, Ms R Vimala on GSI establishing a replica of the one Darjeeling in Kalimpong:

Praful Rao
Kalimpong district
Darjeeling - Sikkim Himalaya

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