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

Mungpel: A village living on the edge (03Jan2021)

 As a part of our landslide surveys, I visited Mungpel, a small village in Pabringtar GP of Kalimpong (Block -1) on 03Jan2021. The village consists of 30 odd houses who are almost entirely of members of Limbu ethnic group. The sombre fact is that of these homes, approximately 10-15 overlook and are in the proximity of huge landslide.

We had carried out a landslide survey in this area in April 2011 and a map of the area from that survey is placed below:

Landslide history
As per locals, the landslide was insignificant until 2018 after which it has grown to its present size. This whole area receives very heavy rainfall and is thrashed by intense thunderstorms during the pre-monsoons but it is a pity there are no rainfall data from this place to relate the landslide activity.
However, the locals clearly said most of the damage was done during the monsoons of 2020 especially around end of Jun2020.
Coordinates of Mungpel Landslide:
N 26.95696° E088.54993°

At the base of the this hill there is a fairly big Durung khola (river) and a wonderful flat piece of land where the villagers do their agriculture and farming. As per the villagers the landslide was not due to toe erosion by the river and was caused by the inherent geology and heavy rain.
Yet another major landslide in the lower Sherwani area, nudges the Mungpel landslide and we have yet to survey that area.

As I have mentioned 3 families have already relocated to upper regions but some 10 other families also may suffer a similar fate - these monstrous landslides are seem impossible to control without serious study and funding.

Praful Rao
Kalimpong district
Darjeeling -Sikkim Himalaya

Orange orchards of Darjeeling & Kalimpong - from the Best Growing Zones into Graveyards.

On 22Nov2015, I made a trip to Sittong in Kurseong subdivison (Darjeeling dist) to check out some landslides in that area. It was a day long trip and I visited some prominent landslides while enroute to the little hamlet and spent much of my day investigating the huge landslide in Sittong 3.
I also talked with some locals about the landslide situation there but while talking about their livelihoods they said oranges which were their main source of livelihood in Sittong were almost gone.
Of course, everyone here knows that oranges from Sittong once flooded the markets in Kalimpong and those along National Highway10 at Lohapul.
What the people I talked to feared most, was that along with oranges, their livelihoods for generations would also disappear.
They were correct.
Oranges as a cash crop in the Darjeeling-Kalimpong region is history today.
This news was brought out in the Telegraph on 25Nov2015 (see below) and I know that it was shown to a very high level official from the Govt of W Bengal who was visiting Kalimpong that day.

Therefore, I was surprised to read yesterday, another article by Vivek on 'Orange crisis in the hills' (below).

So 4 years later, while politicians still bicker and blame each other, the Darjeeling hills - once one of the 'best orange growing zones' in the country, is today a graveyard for orange orchards with the livelihoods of thousands destroyed and it is certainly NOT due to aging trees and orchards alone.
I visited some orchards in Bhalukhop bustee (village), Kalimpong some years ago and talked to a farmer who's crop was similarly blighted - he showed me the reason for the orange trees dying en masse (see below) despite being new plantations:

WIth many of our cash crops, ginger, oranges, now large cardamom succumbing to disease and pests, and the looming water crisis in the mountains where our natural springs are drying up, one wonders about food security in the Darjeeling -Sikkim Himalaya and future of agriculture as viable livelihood option for the rural youth of the region.

Praful Rao,
Kalimpong district,
Darjeeling -Sikkim Himalaya

Chasing landslides in the Darjeeling Himalayas (1) - 22Nov2015

STH has over the years endeavored to maintain a historical record of the landslide activity in the Darjeeling-Sikkim Himalaya in this blog since our region happens to be one of the most landslide prone in the world.
In a bid to update our records we will carryout surveys of landslide areas and publish our findings here - they will not be technical documents rather just factual data to highlight the severity of landslides in this region, in a hope that this disaster form will get the importance that it deserves.

27th Mile Landslide

1. Coordinates: N 26°59.913´ E 088°25.898´

2. Elevn : 299m 

3. Date of activation: 01July2015 - triggered by heavy rain

4. Approx size (from Google Earth): 236m X 400m 

5. Likely impact :

National Highway (NH) 10 and possibly Teesta Low Dam Project (TLDP III)

Karmat Landslide

1. Coordinates: N 26°55.749´ E 088°25.782´

2. Elevn: 675m

3. Date of Activation: Not known

4. Approx size (from Google Earth): 374m X 586m 

5. Likely impact:
Road communication from NH10 to Latpanchar cinchona plantation, Sittong 1/2/3 villages.

Sittong (3) Landslide

1. Coordinates: N 26°56.074´ E 088°23.708´

2. Elevn: 1143m

3. Date of Activation/cause : July1999 - triggered by heavy rain 

4. Approx size (from Google Earth): 290m X 1332m 

5. Fatalities : 08 in 1999. 

6. Relocated : 11 families shifted to Namthing Pokhari by Kurseong block office.

7. Planning relocation due to instability : 4 families with 18 members

8. Impacted:

Many acres of orange orchards and broom plants in the area.

A Different Type of Disaster :

Sittong (1/2/3) village was known for its fine oranges which used to flood the market places of Darjeeling district in Dec/Jan and was one of the main cash crops for many of its citizens. During my visit there yesterday, I learnt that for the last 3 years or so the crop production had declined drastically and now in Nov 2015 they were expecting yields, 90% below their optimum levels.

I was told that a peculiar disease had infected all the orange trees, wherein they would start dying from the inside and then a certain insect would lay eggs on the fruit which would make it rot prematurely -  and all this happening more to orange orchards at the lower elevations.

Some villagers went so far as to tell me that in 2016, they would most probably not produce any oranges from Sittong.

Credits:
My thanks to
Sachin Tamang of Kurseong (9832320738)
Dilkumar Rai of Shelpu, Sittong3 (9547280057)
MB Sarki of the Sittong landslide area (9832406234)
for their time and inputs.

Praful Rao,

Kalimpong,

Dist Darjeeling

A farmer's nightmare - Gairi Gaon, Kalimpong (Jan2014)

On 19Jan2014, STH visited Gairi Gaon (Bong Gram Panchayat), which lies on the eastern face of the Kalimpong ridgeline, directly below densely populated portions of the town. Agriculture, which is the main source of income for people in this village has come under threat with the landslide problem in the area.
The root causes of the landslides appear to be : 

• The rapid urbanization of the area above 'Lower Bong' area leading to more surface run off and during the monsoon season the enormous amounts of rainfall causes the 'jhoras' to swell so much so that in the words of a local farmer Mr Santa Bahadur Rai " The earth trembles and I just can't sleep". 


• The presence of untrained 'jhoras' (streams) (Pasang and Gokulay Slide 1.) in the vicinity of the village. These streams and the 'Relli' river pull apart the hillside causing tremendous damage to the agricultural land (Slide 6.) The government has not initiated any form 'jhora' training programs in the area resulting in vast areas of land remaining fallow. 

Since help from the govt or any NGO seems implausible, the villagers themselves contributed to constructing a road constructed in 2012, prior to which the only way to get to the village was on foot.
Also, since there is no form of compensation given to farmers who have lost their land to a landslide by the government many people have lost there means of livelihood. The area surveyed by STH covers roughly about 73acres (Slide 2.) of which approx 37 acres have been affected in someway by landslide activity. The alarming rate of wear and tear and its effect on the land is clearly evident when we look at the local school which was renovated in 2012 and has already started developing cracks (Slides 4&5). 

The grave reality of the situation though is that all these landslides (other major landslide areas - Sindebung,Chibbo) are actually growing in size each year, slowly nibbling away at the land that surrounds them and unless some sort of mitigation work to stop or slow this process down is done, in the foreseeable future we risk the destabilization of the whole Kalimpong town itself.

Rohan Rao,
Secretary,
SaveTheHills.
Kalimpong

Contact : rohan.rao1313@gmail.com

Images from North Sikkim (13-16Apr2013)

On 18Sep2011 (Sunday), at approx 18.10h IST a 6.8R earthquake rattled much of Sikkim and Darjeeling district.
That very few died was an absolute miracle especially since the quake struck us at the end of the monsoons (when the ground was saturated with water) and that it had rained the whole of Sunday morning.
I have covered the impact of the quake elsewhere in the blog but never had the opportunity to visit North Sikkim where it was epi-centred.
In mid-April 2013, I had visited Mangan (dist headquarters of N Sikkim) and journeyed upto Lachung. While being awed by the amazing beauty of the place, I was totally shocked to see the scale of devastation wrought by the quake even after almost two years. 
The condition of the road from Mangan upto Lachung is appalling with landslides lacerating it at numerous places and magnificent forests of rhododendrons have been decimated by slides enroute to Yumthang ; little wonder then that any heavy spell of rainfall reactivates these slides.
Placed above is a photo essay from my recent visit to this wonderland.


Praful Rao,
Kalimpong

Landslide report (18April2013) ie (02/2013) : Small landslide in Kalimpong

Preliminary inquiries reveal the slide occurred in a village located directly below Kalimpong  due to a mountain stream (Botey jhora, in this case) being overloaded by surface runoff from built up areas of the town during the heavy thundershowers.
This is a well known cause for landslides around urban areas in this region and has also caused much of the landslide fatalities in the area.
Much has been achieved by the scientific community in the study of science of landslides but I daresay little has been done in studying the rate and scale of devastation of land and loss of livelihoods by landslides.

Photo Credit : Mukesh Sharma, Janpath Samachar

Praful Rao,

Kalimpong