Extraordinary rains of September end 2024 (in the Darjeeling - Sikkim Himalaya).

Until the 23rd, the month of September 2024 for us in the Darjeeling-Sikkim Himalaya turned out to be very dry and inordinately hot, prompting a member of the SaveTheHill's What'sApp group 'Hazard Alerts' to write:

'What does it mean, no rain in Kalimpong, Sikkim or Darjeeling?? Paddy fields are drying, springs and streams have dried already, this year "MUL PHUTENA", meaning ground aquifers were not recharged completely. This situation warns of the chaotic food insurgency especially to those who wait for food from farmers. Poor farmers look at the sky, it looks blue, no cloud, and he screams for his hardships and crop failure. I'm a farmer, what option do I have now??'

Another member post this cartoon about the prevailing hot weather:

Then on 24Sep2024, another LOW pressure area, in a series of bumper to bumper lows which had formed in the Bay after 17July2024, developed as shown below:

IMD issued a number of press releases about the weather systems causing the heavy rain and likely weather which would ensue:

Based on IMD and other inputs, STH posted satellite imagery and weather updates continuously during the period in our WhatsApp groups 'Hazard Alerts, Hazard Alerts 2, Hazard Alerts 3' - we also used other social media handles to publicize the heavy rainfall warnings.

Rainfall data

On 29Sep2024, IMD gave us a GREEN (ie no warning after 3 days of RED warning and 1 day of orange warning in the above period) and we had a dry day after 5 days of non-stop rain.

The average monthly rainfall for September in Sub-Himalayan W Bengal and Sikkim is 388.1mm - the 5 day rainfall of Sept2024 end, as seen above came close to or in the case of many towns, exceeded the monthly average and thus we swung from a total deficiency of rain in the first three weeks of September to a gross excess of rain, all of the large volume of water coming at the end of the monsoons when the mountains are almost saturated with water. As such the impact of this unusual heavy rains was huge in the region.

IMPACT

Firstly and most importantly, there were no fatalities even though we did have many landslides and near misses.
Road Communications: NH10
The already poor state of road communications especially in the Teesta valley suffered further set backs.

Landslide on NH10 near Teesta bridge on 27Sep2024 (27 03 40.2 N 88 25 35.3 E)

Large landslide on NH10 near Melli (27.08388889N 88.45098611E)

Other places in the Teesta Valley

Flooded Darjeeling - Kalimpong road near Teesta bridge, 28Sep2024. The debris and sand deposits by the GLOF of Oct2023 had raised the level of the Teesta river by as much as 4-5m so heavy rain
always results in the river flooding this road.

Teesta Low Dam Project III at 27Mile and the flooded Bangay bazar bridge
(26°59´38.20´´N 88°26´32.83´´E)

Flood affected areas of Teesta bazar. As mentioned earlier, the GLOF of Oct2023 has pushed the riverbed levels up by 4-5m and as such the river runs perilously close to many densely populated areas - Melli, SIngtam and Rangpo to name a few. Heavy rain in the valley invariably results in flooding of these areas.

Melli town and stadium ( 27°05´23.03´´N 88°27´28.01´´). The stadium which was entirely covered by debris and sand by the GLOF in Oct2023 had been painstakingly cleaned by the town but it has been rendered unusable by the repeated flooding of the river.

The GTA Covid Hospital (27°04´48.63´´N 88°25´50.37´´E) lying derelict on the banks of the Rangeet river since the GLOF of Oct2023. Parts of the one lane road leading up to the hospital from Teesta Bazar has been under the river for a year now and the recent rains have inundated even more areas of the road.

Other parts of the Kalimpong and Darjeeling districts

Major landslide in the vicinity of Kalimpong town at the by-pass road, 7th mile (27 04 13.9 N 88 26 56.8 E). In Sep 2024, Kalimpong received less rain than Darjeeling and Kurseong and as such we never had as many landslides.This large landslide took place on 28Sep at around3.30pm.

Subsidence due to mountain stream erosion (jhora) in a densely populated area of Kalimpong municipality (27 03 47.0 N 88 27 45.8 E). The subsidence (seen here covered by plastic sheets to prevent water ingress) occurred during daytime on 28Sep2024 when the stream was gorged with runoff from upstream paved surfaces. My concern here is that this whole area is located above a landslide prone zone on which we have done a story in 2010.

Landslide in the Darjeeling Municipal area at Hooker Road, on 26Sep2024

Landslide at Lower Bhaktey bustee in Darjeeling

Sikkim received much less rainfall in late Sep2024 resulting in much less devastation and landslides.

I am sure there were many more unreported landslides and instances of flooding caused by the unusual heavy rains and we will keep updating this blog on the reports, when received. We will also be surveying the affected areas in due course of time.

My thanks to all HA members whose images and reports I have used liberally here and elsewhere - all with the intention of recording the event for posterity.

Documentation of parts of the above report was supported by Royal Enfield, as part of their Social Mission Initiative


Praful Rao
SaveTheHills
savethehills@gmail.com
9475033744

Chungthang: satellite images of BEFORE and AFTER the Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF) of 04Oct2023

STH has covered the Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF) from South Lhonak Glacier extensively in this blog with stories, many images and maps of the devastation which followed all along the Teesta River Valley.
The GLOF hit Chungthang town at around 12.35am on 04Oct2023 causing loss of life and livelihoods and tremendous damage to infrastructure.
Placed above are comparative satellite images of BEFORE the GLOF (Google Earth) and AFTER the floods (NRSC)
The scale of devastation is at once visible - with large swathes of Chungthang town totally covered with debris/sand and the humongous (1200MW) Stage III Sikkim Urja dam destroyed, in the NRSC image of 13Oct2023.

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

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

First CYLONE of 2020 in the Bay of Bengal?

As per IMD (NWP), we might be heading for our second brush with a cyclone in the month of MAY after a gap of 11 years. I still have vivid memories of CYLCONE AILA which hit us in May2009 and left scars which have not healed till date.
Placed below is the forecast of the storm from the NWP:

We r watching the developments closely and have already alerted concerned departments. CYCLONE AILA was bad but this time it's worse, because over and above the cyclone we have another unwelcome visitor - COVID19 is doing the rounds among us.
Do remember that these are NWP charts and by 16May2020 we are likely to get much more detailed forecast tracks from IMD as well as other websites such as JTWC
Praful Rao,
Kalimpong district
Darjeeling - Sikkim Himalaya

Update 1

From Weather.com: Cyclone in Bay of Bengal (May2020)

Update 2 (1200h/16May2020)

Above track has now been formally announced by IMD in a RSMC bulletin

Update 3
Warning No 1 from the JTWC

Update 4

Cyclone 'Amphan' was born yesterday as the depression strengthened and it has since become a Very Severe Cyclonic Storm (VSCS) which is supposed to make landfall near DIGHA on 20May2020 as a VSCS. STH has been conducting awareness workshops on the cyclone both on social networks as well as on local TV.

PS: That's my dog, Kaali in the photo. She follows me like a shadow :)

Praful Rao,
Kalimpong district,
Darjeeling-Sikkim Himalaya

A document from the past: my (restored) photo of the Oct1968 disaster in the Darjeeling-Sikkim Himalaya

The Story behind the above Photo:
I still have vivid and frightening memories of the Oct 1968 Disaster which engulfed the entire Darjeeling-Sikkim Himalayas more than 50yrs ago.
I was 17 then, a student of St Joseph's College, Darjeeling who had come home to Kalimpong during the Puja vacations in the first week of October.
Then all of a sudden it started raining...
Strange that it was raining so heavily when we normally expected fine weather with an occasional shower. Stranger still, that the torrential downpours continued thru the day and night and yet another day and another night ... and for 4 days.
I don't recollect much lightning or thunder so I presume now it wasn't any cyclone or depression which had moved up from the Bay (of Bengal). I just remember the steady and heavy drumming of incessant rain. I also don't recall any panic or concern either among the local people or in government circles.
Meanwhile it just rained and rained and rained.
On the fourth night, I distinctly remember going to bed and hearing muffled explosions at night - landslides were taking place somewhere and reasonably close by...
On the fifth day morning, it stopped raining and suddenly we saw patches of blue skies.. and in the silence with no heavy rain, all I heard was sounds of water - water gushing out of crevices, trickling down some hidden corner, streets which had turned into rivers, water pounding down jhoras (natural drains), and the roar of the Teesta river way below my home in Tirpai, Kalimpong.
And there was also death.
It was everywhere - I saw the carcass of cows which had been buried in a landslide below our home, and near Nandu Ram's Wool Godown (now the CST - Central School for TIbetans) barely 5 mins walk from my home, some 15 people died in a huge landslide (refer the 'explosions'). Further down, in Dungra bustee, a jhora had burst its banks and swept away an entire clan of 7 of our relatives.
My little hamlet, Tirpai was marooned, cut off from the town of Kalimpong which was barely a kilometer away, and Kalimpong itself was marooned from Siliguri with the highway being decimated by landslides.
So we heard new sounds - sounds of helicopters as they dropped supplies and food, up at the army cantonment in Durpin.
I heard that the iconic Anderson bridge at Teesta bazar had been been swept away and that was when I and 2 friends walked down 16kms to photograph the destruction and havoc caused in the mother of all disasters in the Darjeeling- Sikkim Himalaya.
Realizing that most readers of this blog would not have even been born when the Oct 1968 disaster occurred and therefore would not understand the significance of the photo on top, I am attaching an image of the majestic Anderson Bridge which was washed away during the event. It was constructed in 1933 and named after John Anderson, Governor of Bengal.

Praful Rao,
Kalimpong district,
Darjeeling-Sikkim Himalaya

Uttarakhand Cloudburst Jun2013

Uttarakhand Cloud Burst

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Technical advice from Dr B Nandi
About Dr B Nandi :

Dr Nandi is a renowned Aviation Meteorologist in India. He has served Indian Air Force for 33 years in various capacities. He is the founder Director of Centre for Numerical Weather Prediction for Air Force. He is an Alumni of Ramakrishna Mission Vidyapith, Purulia; Ramakrishna Mission College Narendrapur, Kolkata University; Burdwan University and Centre for Atmospheric Science, IIT, Delhi. Currently engaged as Chief  Meteorologist for Indigo Airlines for last 7 years.

Praful Rao,

Kalimpong,

Dist Darjeeling

' The Winter of Discontent in Uttarakhand ' - an article by Dr RK Bhandari

The Winter of Discontent in Uttarakhand

In John Steinbeck’s last novel 'The Winter of Discontent', I find at least three phrases which make my heart weep in the thick of the ghastly landslide and flood tragedy in Uttarakhand. It is a tragedy that right now stares my country in the face. Steinbeck said “I shall revenge myself in the cruelest way you can imagine. I shall forget it.” We shall also forget this for we seem to have lost our faculty to remember! He said,” It’s so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone.” We too are used to living in darkness perhaps because the darkness is not yet dark enough for us to see the stars. Finally, we agree with Steinbeck that “To be alive at all is to have scars” because we have these in plenty and we have to close our eyes if we do not wish to see the writing on the wall!

We have repeatedly failed the people of disaster-torn India, always leaving them high and dry in the times of disasters. It is not for the first time that floods and landslides have ravaged Uttarakhand. We may have forgotten the devastating episodes of 2010 and 2012, the great Alaknanda Tragedy of July 1970 and the great Malpa tragedy of 18 August 1998 but the victims of those tragedies are still bleeding. When the great Alaknanda tragedy struck, I know from personal knowledge that the blame for landslides and floods at once went to the cloudburst because that was the easiest thing for us to do. It is true that when the Alaknanda Tragedy struck in July 1970, the previous maxima of 200mm rainfall recorded at Joshimath on 28 September 1924 was crossed by an all time high rainfall of 212.8mm which occurred in 20 hours of time between 2pm of 20 July 1970 and 8am of 21 July 1970 . It is no less true however that we were not quite honest in throwing the entire blame to the cloud burst when the real blame should have gone to our utter failure of putting a full stop to plundering of environment, mindless urbanization, non-engineered constructions of roads, buildings, reservoirs and dams, and indiscriminate and often illegal mining and quarrying of natural resources. Rather than admitting our blunders and learning lessons in humility, is it not a shame that we keep attributing tragedy after tragedy to more or less the very same reason - cloud burst, which is no more than the last straw that breaks the camel’s back. Let us never forget that excessive rainfalls, in this age of climate change , belong to normal life of fragile eco-systems across the globe and unless we mend our ways and manage our lands with the care they deserve , every tragedy will be an early warning for the next in line.

History is replete with examples of our shedding crocodile tears and looking for photo-opportunities, in distribution of relief and paying lip sympathy to the devastated families without an ounce of repentance and penance. The pain in our hearts cannot be gauged when we face corpses that litter our lands. It will show up on our faces only when we lose ourselves in preparing for the worst of the tragedies in the normal times. How nice it would be if the Prime Minister of India were to announce Rs 1000 crore right now for the North East of India telling the Chief Ministers that they will be held accountable if the repeat of 1897 earthquake in Shillong ,were to end up in a catastrophe we perceive. By the way, as far as the seismologists are concerned, a repeat of the great Shillong earthquake is not a matter of IF, but WHEN? Unfortunately, after the dust of a disaster settles down, we simply move into the comfort zone and monotonically continue with our business as usual until the next disaster knocks our door.

When the National Disaster Management Authority was created in December 2005, by an Act of Parliament, we sold the dream of a paradigm shift to the culture of prevention from the relief-centric approach to disaster management. When the Planning Commission added a Chapter on Disaster Management in the Five Year Plan document, we expressed our commitment to integration of disaster management with development planning. When the devastating earthquake hit the state of Gujarat on the Republic day of 2001, we vowed to take a pro-active stance and sanctioned projects which were supposed to deliver earthquake and landslide hazard zonation maps to help architects, engineers and builders ensure safer constructions. If any such thing has happened, I am not aware. If yes, why do we not see a single validated and certified earthquake hazard or landslide hazard zonation map in use by architects, planners and disaster managers anywhere in this huge country? If no, who all are accountable?

Why have we failed to deliver safety to our people in this case? The question may look difficult but its answer is simple. Our systems, institutions and disaster management apparatuses have failed us. India has created a number of institutions with best of the intentions but these institutions are merely solo players within their own close boundary walls and live within comfort zones without accountability. In managing disasters, we need orchestra play. Does anybody in the public even today know that Geological Survey of India is the officially designated nodal agency for landslides in the country, a move which was fiercely opposed by me at the highest level calling it as a historic blunder. This was not because geology is not critical in landslide studies or Geological Survey of India has not done great things but because a multi-disciplinary field of landslide disasters is not its cup of tea. If they are the responsible agency, we should have seen them facing the heat?

Disaster management remains a budding subject on which everybody seems to behave like an expert until the disaster actually hits. In the stampede for the front-rows of visibility in the normal times, those responsible for disaster management often forget that by not doing their jobs well and in running the race merely for paltry gains, they are trampling over the lives and future of the very people who regard them as their beacon of hope in the times of crisis. The political masters usually step-in from nowhere to direct the relief operations from their high chairs, primed by the poorly-informed bureaucrats in attendances trying to save their own skins from the failure to prevent the disaster. The rapid-action-forces, army and agencies like the Border Roads Organization remain our only hope but how much they can do when Rome is already burning.
Our people need to be made aware. If we fail to feed in right information to the right people at the right time, the astrologers will naturally fault the stars and the journalists will naturally report what they can pick from the heaps of confusion. Now when we know what ails our system, let’s join hands and unitedly fix it. In states like Uttarakhand, where disasters repeat frequently, highest order of expertise is required to advise the government on matters connected with formulation of policy, practice of engineering, selection of technology, capacity building and training. Like Uttarakhand, our country has many states which are affected by more than one type of disaster. Imagine if another disaster, natural or man-made were to strike our mother land at this moment when we stand fully exhausted.

________________________________________________________________________

Prof RK Bhandari is a distinguished alumnus from IIT Mumbai, a Fellow of Indian National Academy of Engineering  and a recipient of the coveted Varne’s Medal for Excellence in Research and Practice of Landslides.

Praful Rao,
Kalimpong

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