Ist West Bengal State Disaster Risk Reduction Congress at Kolkata (22-24Apr2010) - decidely, a Non-Event

Approx 14 delegates (representing the NGOs Anugyalaya / DLR Prerna / Friends of Trees and SaveTheHills)  from the hill subdivisions of Darjeeling district attended the 3 day Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) Congress at Salt Lake Stadium between the 22 -24Apr 2010.
To all of us who attended, the initiative from the State IAG and Dept of Disaster Management, Govt of W Bengal was decidedly a non-event because :-

a) The entire proceedings for the 3 days were conducted in Bengali, a language which not many amongst us were familiar with.

b) More importantly, the focus of the disaster risk reduction congress remained entirely on effects of  cyclone AILA in the plains, floods and Tsunamis. As such landslides, sadly remained " a Silent Disaster".
The serious landslide problem in the Darjeeling hills was barely mentioned in all the technical sessions except when specific questions were directed at the panelists.

This disaster form (landslides) are without a doubt the most serious environmental hazard which directly or indirectly impacts the lives of almost all the people living in the Darjeeling Himalayas; as such, I wonder why it escaped more serious consideration and was almost entirely sidelined during the 1st West Bengal State Disaster Risk Reduction Congress.

Praful Rao

STH activities - Landslide Awareness Workshop with School Students (10APR2010)

S.U.M.I (Scottish University Mission Institutions) school is possibly the biggest and oldest school in Kalimpong with more than 3000students. On the invitation of the Principal, Mr NR PRadhan, STH conducted a 90min landslide awareness program with students from Class X and VI. The program included a quiz by STH Member Ms Aachal Tamang.

My thanks to the Principal and staff off SUMI for this opportunity.

Praful Rao

STH activities - Forewarning the communities

Himalaya Darpan is the largest local daily with a circulation of over 40,000 in this region (a large part of which is affected by landslides).
They have agreed to allow STH to publish articles regularly regarding the landslide hazards - this is our second article on landslides (published on the 06Apr2010) and is about preparedness for the monsoons and the landslides which will invariably occur then.

Praful Rao

From "The Telegraph" on 03Apr2010

3 siblings killed in Cachar landslide
- Death in the mountains of the northeast OUR BUREAU
Silchar, April 2:
In the battle between Man and the mountains of the Northeast, the former continues to lose, sadly without seeming to learn a lesson, no matter what the toll in terms of human lives.
The latest disaster has come from Assam where three children aged 7, 5 and 2 were crushed to death after the side of a mountain slid onto their house in Cachar, wiping it out. Their parents, Deepak and Supriti Roy, who survived the catastrophe were seriously injured.
A torrential downpour — some 26 inches on the rain gauge — over the past few days loosened the earth leading to the tragedy at the reserved forest village of Paglanala under Dholai block in the state’s Cachar district.
In the reckless destruction of mountains — be it in the name of “development” or the creation of more “living space” — there have been instances of entire convoys of passenger traffic being stranded in the mountains of the region because of landslides.
Solutions to the problem, meanwhile, have been few and far between. Apart from widening roads and building guard walls — and these aren’t always enough to hold back a mountain quite literally on the move — Meghalaya, for example, has built tunnels through mountains, including a 120-metre construction through the Sonapur range in the state’s Jaintia Hills.
In Guwahati, the — Gateway to the Northeast — landslides have claimed scores of lives over the past years. “Most hills around the city are unfit for human habitation as they are made up of fragile, loose alluvial soil,” says Jiten Malakar, divisional officer of the state’s soil conservation department.
That, though, has not prevented Guwahati’s steadily growing population from occupying the city’s hills — legally or illegally, with laws such as the Assam Hill Land and Ecological Sites (Protection and Management) Act, a piece of legislation meant to prevent the destruction of hills leading just about nowhere in this mad scramble for land.
Worst of all, the Northeast’s real rains are yet to set in. The disaster in Silchar, for one, was caused by pre-monsoon showers that have lashed the region over the last few days. The worst then could be yet to come.

Italics are mine


Praful Rao

STH activities - training in FIRST AID to volunteers from CHIBO/PASHYOR villages

For the benefit of those who do not follow the blog regularly - CHIBO/PASHYOR are villages on the western face of the Kalimpong ridge and they have had a long history of treacherous landslides. With the monsoons just around the corner SaveTheHills (STH) is working on a CBDRM program there on a trial basis.
In so doing we organized basic first aid training to 11 young men and women of the villages at the Military Hospital in Kalimpong in the first week of Mar2010.
We also hope to provide them with some first aid equipment before the monsoons start.

STH would like to thank the Army Authorities and officers / personnel of the Military Hospital who went out of their way to help us with the training.

Praful Rao

Revealing a hidden secret - landslides below Bong Bustee (village) and East Main Road (Kalimpong)

1. Much has been written and said about the Sindebung bustee (village) landslides which lie in the under-belly of Kalimpong, infact STH has regularly taken scientists, media people and students there and even produced a small video.
However, the landslides in lower Dungra and Bong bustees  (Map ‘A’) which lie below the most stable parts of Kalimpong ie (Bong Bustee and East Main Road area) have escaped such scrutiny and interest. The reasons maybe twofold :-

a) The area is inaccessible except to those who are prepared to slog it out on foot.
b) The people of the area, for some reason, have not spoken out.

2. On 27Mar2010, STH with the help of local volunteers trudged the area (Map ‘B’) on foot. The five hour trek revealed what was expected:-

a) The surface runoff rain water from the built up areas of town lying on the eastern face of the Kalimpong ridgeline (approx area circled in green - Map ‘A’) feed into a network of small tributaries which in turn empty into 4-5 major natural rivulets (or jhoras) which drain this area.

b) These major jhoras are causing intense scouring and loss of land to farmers in lower Bong and Dungra bustees.

c) Pasang jhora (Slide ‘1’) which emanates from the Baghdhara/ Mela ground area is a major cause of landslides in the Adhikari gaon and the people of the area have suffered major land loss here.

d) Gokulay jhora (Slide ‘2’) which originates from the Savitri Ghising road area in Bong Bustee is another major source of landslides in the area.

e) A smaller jhora called Naali Khola (Slide ‘3’) which originates from the SD hospital and then Gos Khan drains thru the Lower Dungra area and has caused some damage there. It is the source of a huge amount of pollution in this area since originates from a densely populated part of Kalimpong town.

f) The drainage from the Golf Course / East Main Road area has created huge landslide problems in the upper reaches - luckily in the lower areas, they pass thru areas with little or no population.

g) Villagers of the area said that almost the entire landslide problem was the result of the rains in 2009 and that prior to this period the jhora problem was not as acute.

3. As in the many other landslide zones visited the cause of landslides here is also wholly anthropogenic.
The pattern is now established and familiar – unplanned and rapidly expanding urban areas in the upper reaches causes a huge increase in the volumes of high velocity water flowing in the jhoras (natural drains) which are not designed to handle these volumes- this in turn causes erosion and landslides.

So if we humans are causing the landslides…it is upto us to try and prevent and mitigate them – and having seen the scale of devastation that is taking place in these mountains, I can predict that should we continue to neglect this issue as we are doing, much of our landscape will change not in a 100 years but in the next 15-20 years.


Praful Rao

STH Activities - 4 (How to prepare a 'Family Survival Kit' published in 'Himalaya Darpan')

Himalaya Darpan is the largest local daily with a circulation of over 40,000 in this region (a large part of which is affected by landslides).
They have agreed to allow STH to publish articles regularly regarding the landslide hazards ....the first one appeared today and it is about keeping a family survival kit handy in landslide prone areas so that people do not waste valuable time in an emergency and are able to survive on their own for 2-3 days until help arrives.

The article (in Nepali) is placed above.

My thanks to the Darpan team for giving space to highlight the most serious environmental challenge facing us who live in this region - landslides.

Praful Rao

STH Investigation...NHPC Stage III Lo Dam at 27th Mile (20Mar2010)

At max magnification on Google maps one could see lines resembling cracks at the ridge of a hill overlooking the National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) Stage III Lo dam (Teesta River) at 27th Mile near Kalimpong , refer Slide 'A' (top).
STH organized a trip there on 20Mar2010 and walked the areas where the "crack" should have been with 2 local youths acting as guides ( see attachment 'B'jpg.).
We found no evidence of  "cracks/fissures" and the local village people whom we talked to verified this finding.

A possible explanation to the mysterious lines/cracks has been offered by Dr David Petley ,BSc (Hons) AKC PhD FRGS FGS ILTM CGeog (Wilson Chair in Hazard and Risk in the Department of Geography, Univ of Durham UK), whom I contacted yesterday. He writes:-

"Interpreting satellite imagery is notoriously difficult in situations like this, which is why we need either a good elevation model or (preferably) stereo coverage to do so properly. One particular problem is that when the sun angle is low (as per the Google Earth image), small features create shadows that make them look far more substantial. I suspect (though of course cannot say for certain) that this is the case in the images that you have looked at. I suspect that there is a small path or suchlike up there and the edges are casting shadows that look like cracks.I think if there really were cracks up there that one can see on Google Earth then they would have been very obvious on the ground."

That's the good news, the downside is that there are sinking areas below Deorali village (towards 28th Mile) and just above the dam site.

Praful Rao

High resolution imagesof NHPC stageIII dam at 27 Mile (Kalimpong)

Praful Rao

SaveTheHills Activities (17Mar2010) ... (3)

As we continue our Community Based Disaster Risk Management (CBDRM) work in the rural sector (viz CHIBO- PASHYOR villages, our pilot project), today, we had a  meeting  with some young men and women at the village school.
We asked them to mark the vulnerable areas of their regions in printouts of  high resolution maps of the area which are now available. We will use their inputs to draw up a disaster management plan at the village level.

My thanks to Mr Yashwant Pradhan and Zion Lepcha of Chibo for organizing the many workshops in their area and also to Ranit Chatterjee, a young Disaster Management student from Tata Institute of Social Sciences (Mumbai) who has been doing his internship with STH for 3 weeks now - his contribution and work with us has been invaluable.

Praful Rao