Landslides in Kalimpong - A pictoral report (July2015)

Praful Rao, Save the Hills: As per the GSI, the Darjeeling- Sikkim Himalaya is one of the most landslide prone areas in the country and as per Dr David Petley, this area also is one of the global hotspots for fatal landslides. SaveTheHills (STH) has, in this blog, over the years tried to maintain a historical record of this disaster form which has not received due recognition the world over so as to offer undeniable proof of a scourge which is growing worse in this region as human interference in the mountains increases. 

In July 2015, after 3 yrs of low landslide activity, we are witnessing a spurt in the number of landslides in Darjeeling district (esp in Kalimpong and Mirik) due to erratic and intense rainfall. Rainfall records for Kalimpong and this region are placed here ( 1 and 2 ). 

What is also clear is almost all the fatalities especially in urban or semi-urban settings are the result of poor or non-existent drainage. While we have tried to cover many areas of the sub-division in our survey, large areas remain uncharted due to lack of resources and what is shown above is only the tip of the iceberg. (Major landslide areas south of the river Relli have not been included in our survey.) 

GPS co-ordinates of all landslide listed above are available (free of charge) on request. SaveTheHills (STH) is a Kalimpong based NGO working towards raising awareness about landslides in the Darjeeling- Sikkim Himalaya which is one of the most landslide prone areas of the world. The hundreds of articles, images, maps and video clips on this blog bear testimony to a fact which has long been ignored but which can only be ignored further at a terrible cost.

(Courtesy: http://savethehills.blogspot.in)