Withdrawal of SW monsoons : 28Sep2010

One of the important roles of STH is to vigilantly monitor the weather over this region during the monsoons with a view to forewarn communities about impending periods of heavy/intense rainfall (which is the main trigger for most of the landslides in this region). 
Thanks to modern technology viz broadband internet & SMS etc and friends who are senior meteorologists we have been able to accomplish this task to considerable degree.
Also from Jun2010 we were able to monitor rainfall on a daily basis in the district with the 3 automatic rainfall gauges installed at Kalimpong, Kurseong and Darjeeling - the monthly rainfall being posted on this blog with a short analysis.

As a part of this role, the latest position of the SW monsoons is shown on the excerpt from the India Meteorology website

 

Praful Rao

The need for awareness and why STH must prevail

Slowly but surely anthropogenic factors are coming to the fore as one of the main causes of landslides in the Darjeeling-Sikkim Himalaya & in this, perhaps the key issue is the drainage  system (both man-made and natural) in the urban and rural areas.
The photos exemplify the state of most of our drains in the urban areas (top) and the condition of our jhoras (natural drains) on the periphery of all the towns (bottom).
STH, has in the past 3 yrs carried out almost 50 awareness workshops/seminars etc. It is clear that this drive must be intensified to bring about a fundamental change in the mindset of our communities in order to reverse the damage we are causing to these mountains by our callousness.

Praful Rao

STH's third anniversary and our official logo.

 

3 Years of Existence

SaveTheHills (STH) is  3 years old today and here is a recap of our achievements and failings:-

Achievements

1.  STH is today a registered NGO working on the landslide hazard issue in the Darjeeling/Sikkim Himalayas.

2. We have been able to highlight the seriousness of the landslide problem in this region at the national and state levels - in so doing we are urging a long term, comprehensive solution be sought.
3. STH has conducted/ participated in or organized 47 big and small awareness camps/ workshops and seminars and our audience has been as diverse as villagers, professors, students, police officers, government officials and politicians.
4. Our paper on the landslide problem of Chibo-Pashyor villages of Kalimpong is now part of the official papers of the 2nd India Disaster Management Congress held at Vigyan Bhavan, New Delhi in Nov2009.
5. We have installed automatic rainfall gauges at Kalimpong and Kurseong and along with the one already existing at Darjeeling are able to keep a daily tab on the rainfall in these 3 major towns of the district. A monthly record of the rainfall in these towns along with a short analysis is published every month on this blog (from Jun2010).
6. Our maps of landslide affected areas are much more accurate thanks to Google Maps and imports from GPS.
7. With the help of India Meteorological Department we have established a rudimentary SMS based early warning system which has been functional throughout the monsoons of 2010. Under this system, heavy rainfall warnings are SMSed by Gangtok Regional Met office to a number of prominent NGOs who in turn pass on the warnings to communities in areas where they operate.

8. We carried out Community Based Disaster Risk Management on an experimental basis in Chibo-Pashyor villages of Kalimpong. In so doing we trained some young volunteer men and women in first aid (thanks to the army) and we also gave them some basic first aid and rescue equipment.
9. STH has been featured in a number of national magazines and newspapers inclusive of Tehelka, Planet-Earth, Times of Disaster Management, Telegraph, Talk Sikkim etc. STH won the Manthan Award South Asia (MASA) in Dec2009 and has also been featured a number of times in this prestigious landslide blog.

Weaknesses

1. Without a doubt our most important weakness is lack of funds. This inhibits our work on a much larger scale where we could
a) Conduct a massive awareness drive in the district and Sikkim.
b) Update the inventory of landslides including those increasingly due to anthropogenic factors.
c) Continue with CBDRM and capacity building measures in vulnerable areas.
We are working hard to change this situation.

STH would like to thank Mr Gaurav Mani Pradhan for designing a most appropriate logo for us

Praful Rao

Keeping tab on the rainfall

For several days now India Meteorological Department (Kolkata) has the following warning on this website

"Heavy to very heavy rain may occur at a few places over Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri and Coochbehar districts of Sub-Himalayan West Bengal during next 24 hours. Heavy rain may also occur at isolated places over Bihar, Sikkim and remaining districts of Sub-Himalayan West Bengal during next 24 hours."

The cloud picture from Satellite Kalpana-1 of today is shown and the rainfall figure of three towns are :-

1. Kalimpong (10Sep2010) - 51mm      11Sep2010 (upto 9AM) - 18mm
(At Kalimpong the rainfall has more or less stopped)

2. Kurseong (10Sep2010) - 65mm        11 Sep2010 (upto 9AM) -16mm
(It is continuing to rain heavily at Kurseong)

3. Darjeeling (10Sep2010) - 10mm       11Sep2010 (upto 9AM) - 20mm

(Whereas there was hardly any rainfall yesterday, it is raining now at Darjeeling)

Posted at 1000hrs on 11Sep2010.

Praful Rao

Landslides in Sikkim - 09Sep2010

09Sep2010

The Jawaharlal Nehru Marg connecting Gangtok with Nathu La border was restored today afternoon by Project Swastik of Border Roads Organization (BRO).
A BRO release informs that the Jawaharlal Nehru Marg was made through for all kinds of vehicles from 3 pm due to untiring and dedicated efforts by 130 Road Construction Company OC Manoj Kumar and his team.
The work team led by Lt Col Aniruddha Sen was also successful in recovering the heavy vehicle which was struck between the two slides.
However the road is still one way and traffic regulation is required.

Story : Sikkim Express

Photo : BRO

Praful Rao

Rainfall data Aug2010

The rainfall data of Aug2010 is placed above.
Kurseong again leads with excessive rainfall, whereas there has been more or less normal rainfall in Kalimpong and Darjeeling.
For Kalimpong and Kurseong one third of the month was almost dry with less than 5mm of rain.
Darjeeling district has remained largely unscathed by landslides this month with no death reported; things were not as rosy in neighbouring Sikkim which had more than its share of landslides especially along the highways.

 

Praful Rao

A rundown of STH activities in Aug2010

1. The PR Pradhan Merit Awards, is a huge day long annual event organized by the Scottish Universities Mission Institution (S.U.M.I)  Alumni Association at the Town Hall in Kalimpong. This year the school had chosen "Preserving the Environment for the future" as its theme. STH participated with a power point presentation of the landslide problem in Kalimpong - the talk was entitled "The Mountains are talking but are we listening?"

2. On 13Aug2010, STH took part in a phone-in session regarding landslide hazards in the district organized by Himalaya Darpan, the largest selling Nepali daily in this region.
3. STH is well on its way along with DECU of ISRO, Ahmedabad towards making a documentary on landslides (see here)
4. Abstract as well as full length papers have been submitted for the 2nd World Congress on Disaster Management at Hyderabad in late Oct 2010 - the topic is " Landslide problem in Kalimpong and the need for a comprehensive, long term solution". The Congress is being organized by this society.

Praful Rao

Landslides in Sikkim - 28Aug2010 (Extracts from Sikkim Express)

"

"Generally speaking, to kill people a landslide needs to move quickly rapid, and rapid landslides appear to be primarily (but note not always) triggered by intense rainfall events (indeed in the reports the term "cloudburst" often crops up). So, a key component of trying to understand the impacts of human-induced global climate change on landslides is the likely nature of changes in rainfall intensity, rather than that of rainfall total. Put another way, it is possible that the average annual rainfall for an area might decrease but the occurrence of landslides increase if the rainfall arrives in more intense bursts."                                                                                                                           - Dr DN Petley, Univ of Durham, UK

GANGTOK, August 28:
1. The unrelenting slides induced by incessant rainfall have further displaced more households in East Sikkim with 35 families shifted to safer places by the District administration today while Gangtok was cut-off from rest of the country for the second straight day due to two stubborn slides along the National Highway 31A near Government Fruit Preservation near Singtam.
2. The Project Swastik of Border Roads Organization (BRO), which looks after the national highways in Sikkim and parts of North Bengal, has managed to clear all the slides which occurred between 32^nd Mile and Singtam on Thursday night.
3. The highway does have a smooth traffic but for the slides near the Government Fruit Preservation Factory forcing the commuters to walk some 200 m over the slides and take transshipment on either side.
4. The BRO Project Swastik executive engineer, AK Singh said that slides near Government Fruit Preservation Factory could not be cleared also even though three machines and sufficient manpower were deployed since first light today.
5. “We are trying our best to clear the slides by tomorrow noon. However if it rains tonight, we cannot help it”, said Singh. He pointed out that restoration works have been hampered by constant slush coming from the hill side.

6. “During our survey in the area, a considerably large artificial pond had been spotted on top the hill,” said the BRO official. The pond could have been created due to collection of underground water or supply from small streams located further uphill.
7. The seepage of water from the pond has led to sliding of more slush down the road whenever the existing muck is swept away by the machines and labourers. Whenever the muck from the road is cleared another batch of muck comes down from the hillside, the BRO official said.
8. Meanwhile, the continuous flow of slush has gathered threateningly in the staff quarters of the factory prompting the East District administration to evacuate 18 families from the quarters to safer locations.

9. SDM (East) AB Karki said that the quarters have been damaged by the slush and slides. “We shifted 18 families from the quarters and provided them relief materials,” he said.

10. The SDM also informed that two houses were damaged by slides at Sirwani near Dikchu. The families have also been shifted, he said.

11. Around 15 houses were also damaged in various degrees at Chisopani and Dochun near Singtam and the families have been shifted, said Karki. There are also reports of livestock being killed by slides, he said.

Photo credit and report from Sikkim Express - many thanks to them and for those interested the full text of Dr Petley's article is here

Praful Rao

Landslides in and news from Sikkim

Seven landslides cut off Sikkim link Woman disappears in swirling flash flood (Telegraph, India)

OUR CORRESPONDENT

Gangtok, Aug. 27: Seven landslides struck a 15km stretch of NH31A and crippled traffic on Sikkim’s only road link with the rest of the country after heavy rain lashed the Himalayan state last night. A 31-year-old woman was washed away in one of the flash floods that followed.

The landslides, four of them major ones, occurred between 32 Mile and Singtam on NH31A, the stretch littered with slush and debris that came tumbling down from the hillside late last night and early this morning.

The landslides left at least 100 vehicles coming from Siliguri stranded on the Bengal-Sikkim border at Rangpo for sometime. While some passengers tried to walk and cross the slides, others returned to Siliguri. “The vehicles — there were lots of them — were told to stay put at Singtam for the night,” said A.K. Singh, the executive engineer of Project Swastik of the Border Roads Organisation that is in charge of the highway.

The first major landslide nearest to Gangtok was at the mouth of Topakhani, a 12-metre tunnel, 23km from here.

_______________________________

From the Sikkim Express
State Disaster Management Authority to oversee natural calamities prevention, mitigation operations  

SE Report
GANGTOK, August 25: The State government has established a ten-member State Disaster Management Authority (SDMA) headed by Chief Minister as ex-officio chairman for emergency and mobilization of resources including manpower for disaster management whenever natural calamities strike Sikkim.
The ministers for urban development, irrigation, health services, rural development, public health engineering, roads & bridges and buildings & housing departments are also members in the SDMA.
State chief secretary TT Dorji is also a member of this authority with disaster management department secretary as the member secretary.
It is informed that the SDMA shall be an authority for declaration of disaster situation and disaster areas with boundaries and declaration of emergency and mobilization of resources including manpower for relief work, rehabilitation, reconstruction, search and rescue for disaster management when disaster occurs.

Praful Rao

Photo credit : "Landslide at Namok Khola, Mangan, North Sikkim" from Sikkim Express

Landslide in Sikkim :19Aug2010

SaveTheHills is a Kalimpong - based organization & as such our work has, for the most part been Kalimpong-centric- I am sure that this leads many to think that Kalimpong is the most landslide prone area in this region and the other major urban centres and areas in the district and in Sikkim are totally devoid of this scourge.

This perception could not be more inaccurate - I am very sure that other areas are as badly if not worse affected - it is only that the effects of this disaster form are so localized that no one except those directly affected would know or speak about landslides. Alas, this is a disaster form which nibbles away insidiously without many noticing the malaise until it is too late.
In this regard, I know that the state of Sikkim has had many more landslides this year than Darjeeling district, yet it this fact has hardly been noticed or acknowledged.


Praful Rao

Photo credit : Sikkim express