Hailstorm havoc in tea estate

TT, 1 April 2019, Alipurduar: A sudden bout of hailstorm has led to extensive damages at a tea estate located in Falakata block of Alipurduar district on Sunday The hails have damaged plantations at the Kadambini tea estate, the factory and also processed teas which were ready for dispatch from the garden.

According to sources, at around 8am as workers were about the start plucking at the plantations the hailstorm started in some areas of the Falakata block. Hailstones weighing as much as 200gms fell on tea bushes and the shed of the Kadambini tea estate's factory.

It lasted for around 30 minutes which damaged tea bushes spread over 300 hectares. In total, the garden has tea bushes spread over 440 hectares, sources said The workers rushed out of the plantations to escape injuries "I was at the plantations when the hailstorm started. It continued for quite some time and after it stopped, it was all white around. 

We went and checked the tea bushes and found that the leaves and buds got damaged," Nirshan Jha, an employee of the garden said.

As the workers returned from plantations, they found that the factory shed was also damaged in the hailstorm.

"Numerous holes have come up in the shed and the factory floor was covered with hailstones. Some of the machineries got wet and it would take time to clean the factory and resume production. We are concerned as almost two third of the plantation area has been damaged and we have only a smaller portion left to pluck tea leaves for production," said a senior employee of the garden.

At the factory, there were around 2,000kg of made tea, packed in bags and ready for dispatch. 

"We could not save a single bag of tea. The entire produce has got drenched in the hailstones," he added Sunil Sounders, the garden's manager, said they would need quite some time to get out of the loss and resume production. "It is a huge loss at the beginning of the season. We are yet to make a complete assessment," he said.