LandSlide | RELIEF CAMP | Ganesh Tok might get washed away.

"Is this the real life - Is this just fantasy - Caught in a LANDSLIDE;
No escape from reality- Open your eyes - Look up to the skies and see."

- Bohemian Rhapsody - QUEEN

25 families have been evacuated in the past few days from Upper Chandmari.

RELIEF CAMPS are setup at panchayat office complex, Enchey School premises and the Doordarshan complex in Chandmari. Ganesh Tok also faces the danger of being washed away.

Does it sound like the Sikkim you know??? Did you ever imagine RELIEF CAMPS in Su-khim.

Mother Nature is definitely cross with the way we are treating the planet that she decided to shower incessantly and wreak havoc; triggering landslides and blocking roads in several parts of the state.

The districts [Gyalsing/Namchi/Mangan/Gangtok] are SILOS onto themselves; cut off from each other logistically and paralysing communication.

"More than 15 landslips on state highways have cut off South and West Sikkim from the rest of the state. Rabongla remains inaccessible from all sides.

Gyalshing remains cut off because of landslides near Tashiding Fatak, close to Legship." Source - SikkimTimes.com

Landslides have cut off Singtam Dikchu Road in east Sikkim. Chungthang, remained cut off from Mangan.

National Highway 31A was blocked with slush/debris for several hours at 20 Mile between Singtam and Rangpo. About 500 vehicles were stranded throughout the day on the 16th of July 2007.

The road at Indira Bypass at Lower Sichey has caved in. This is in addition to the landslide at Amdo Golai last month which had already left the Bypass closed to traffic.

Are we PREPARED???

POST MORTEM is all we are good at; we never are PRO-ACTIVE and we never initiate preventive measures. In many ways we are akin to the BIG Pharma companies producing medicines to fight existing DISEASES but never produce medicines to PREVENT those DISEASES {maybe except for pregnancy :)}. Preventive medicine is left to holistic healers/Yoga/Sadhu/Babas/ under the ambit of alternative medicine. Somewhere; somehow - economics and commerce dictate the path they take and choices they make.

Among the 4 major causes of landslide listed namely Geological, Morphological, Physical and Human causes; the Human causes makes the most interesting reading:

• Excavation
• Loading
• Drawdown
• Land use change
• Water management
• Mining
• Quarrying
• Vibration
• Water leakage

Hmmmm....!!!!