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

IMPACT: a photo-essay on impact of landslides in the Darjeeling-Sikkim Himalaya

Impact

IMPACT is a photo-essay done by a layman (yrs truly) for laypersons on the impact of landslides on human beings in this region. I have compiled the photos from a 11yr period (except for those shared by Das Studio, Darjeeling) and have woven my observations/comments on them.
It is by no means complete and will be continued. What I am extremely apologetic about is the lack of hard core data since I did not have access to district or state records on the huge impact of landslides on loss of life, land, compensation paid or of rainfall while making this presentation.
Regrets for that.
I also have not included any technical details of the landslides shown in the images simply because I have no access to them.


Praful Rao,
Kalimpong district,
Darjeeling - Sikkim Himalaya

STH Activities : Chasing landslides in Kalimpong

In the second week of Dec2012, I had the pleasure of interacting with Mr Debashish Bhattacharya, senior geologist from Geological Survey of India, which is the nodal body looking after landslides in the country. The GSI scientist was in Kalimpong for 10days with a mandate to update the GSI landslide inventory of this area.

I am glad to say that a group of volunteers and I could accompany the geologist to all the major landslide zones in the vicinity of Kalimpong town and also provide him assistance in visiting landslide sites in Nimbong, Suruk, Samthar, Algarah and Payun (ie places in Kalimpong sub-division but at a considerable distance from town).

All this points to the vital necessity of involvement of local people in landslide surveys by any outstation scientific body if the correct picture of the landslide situation is to emerge; because only through local participation can the GSI (or any other body) understand the past history of the area and the impact of landslides on human beings, which after all should be the final endeavor of any scientific inquiry.

Placed above are images of some ot the areas we visited along with captions. Many of the sites have links on this blog where you can read more details :-
SLIDE 1 - read further here
SLIDE 2 - read further here
SLIDE 7,8,9 - read further here

My thanks to Debashish for his time and for accompanying us on those long, steep treks as we chased landslides in Kalimpong.

Praful Rao