Our video on Tanyang Landslides is featured in Prof Dave Petley's blog

While Prof Dave Petley, was recently appointed the Vice Chancellor of the Univ of Hull, it has been our proud privilege of having known Dave for many years and also regularly following his world famous blog on landslides.
I am extremely glad to mention here that our video (https://youtu.be/OQZpNDNktiU ) made on the landslide and landslide victims of Tanyang village in Kalimpong was featured in Dave's landslide blog recently.
The link is here.

Praful Rao
Kalimpong district
Darjeeling Sikkim Himalaya

STH activities in September 2022 : Awareness Workshops

 

Raising awareness about landslide hazards, disaster risk and environmental issues remains
one of the primary roles of STH

Praful Rao
Kalimpong district
Darjeeling-Sikkim Himalaya

A short documentary on Tanyang Landslides

 

Continuing our coverage of the landslides in Tanyang village (Samalbung GP, Kalimpong 1) please find a link of a short documentary we have made on the landslide.

https://youtu.be/OQZpNDNktiU 

Praful Rao,
Kalimpong district
Darjeeling-Sikkim Himalaya

Tanyang, a village on the edge (11Sep2022)

Tanyang, a tiny village (in Samalbung GP, Kalimpong 1) composed almost entirely of people from the Lepcha community is approximately 2hrs drive from Kalimpong. It is a village of farmers and as such, land being their most precious asset, the loss of 10-12 acres of land due to the landslides creates a huge dent on the earnings and livelihoods of the people.
I was rather surprised to hear of a recent landslide in the village because of the mild summer monsoons this year and a deficiency in rains in July and August 2022.
We were in the landslide affect areas adjoining the main village yesterday where we did a drone survey of the landslide.
A Google - Earth image of the landslide dated 1/1/2021 is placed below:

 

The local people, who are often the best judges, offered various reasons for the cause of the landslide:

• It was initially triggered during the major landslide disaster of Oct 1968, which is totally believable since many of the old landslides started with this event.
• Some of the villagers said it was the Sep2011 Sikkim earthquake which had created the cracks and the fissures.
• Everyone seemed quite sure that the heavy rainfall on 26Aug2022 had caused the recent landslides which necessitated the evacuation of 10 families from the immediate vicinity of the landslide.
• Some said water was oozing out from inside the slide which probably caused the slide.
  
• One could safely rule out human activity as a probable cause. There is no urban built up areas here, population is low, no major road construction or other developmental activity. No jhora nearby which could have caused the erosion and the river at the base of the mountain is quite far and could not have caused toe erosion.
  
  
   
   
  10 families, including women and children had been evacuated and were housed in temporary structures and also in the ICDS building
  
  
  
  

When interviewed the women folk especially were apprehensive of the future and wanted to be relocated close by somewhere and quickly since the future of the family and children were at stake. 

 Media report of the landslide is placed below:

The link to the drone footage and interviews will be put up as soon as it is ready.

Praful Rao
Kalimpong district
Darjeeling Sikkim Himalaya

Rainfall data of August 2022 of some town in the Darjeeling - Sikkim Himalaya

 

August 2022  was again a month when rainfall for most places, in the Darjeeling Sikkim Himalayas was less than normal - with most of the precipitation taking place in the plains of the Dooars in Jalpaiguri and Cooch Behar districts.
Also for the second successive month, Darjeeling had less rain than Kalimpong.

What undoubtedly caused less rainfall was sudden activity in the Bay of Bengal with several low pressure areas forming which then moved inland as depressions.

The rainfall distribution in Sikkim and North Bengal (as per IMD) is shown below. The hills of Darjeeling and Kalimpong districts along with East and South Sikkim districts saw deficient rainfall.

Not much landslide activity was observed in our region, the exception being several areas along NH10 (Highway connecting Siliguri to Gangtok).

As you would observe we have added several remote areas, in our rainfall reports - these area Mangzing and Bijanbari.
Mangzing (in Gorubathan block, Kalimpong district) receives the full fury of the monsoons and has the around the highest rainfall in our region.


Praful Rao,
Kalimpong district
Darjeeling - Sikkim Himalaya