Kolkata: 850 Sikkim tourists rescued after landslide, 70 take refuge in gurdwara | Kolkata News

SILIGURI/KALIMPONG: Around 850 tourists in Sikkim got stranded after incessant rain and landslides cut off the roads and halted traffic on the North Sikkim Highway on Wednesday. While 600 of them were initially rescued and brought back to their hotels and some sent to a medical facility, around 250 had to take shelter at a gurdwara.
Even those 250 travellers were brought down by Thursday evening but another group of 70 bikers got stranded nearby. Those 70 are now at the gurdwara, waiting to be rescued.

The route from Chungthang to Lachung in North Sikkim was blocked in a landslide around at 7am on Wednesday. Moreover, heavy rain damaged NH-10, which connects Sikkim with Siliguri. By afternoon, the Met department issued a red alert in the state and warned of “heavy to very heavy rainfall” due to an upper air trough from east UP to Arunachal across Bihar, sub-Himalayan Bengal and Assam.
As it took long to clear the road, tourists stranded around 2km from Chungthang started fretting, given the wait and the bad weather. The Army camp at Lachung got into the action. Some of the tourists were shifted to the nearest medical facility. “The Army assisted the Sikkim Police in regulating the traffic and by 6pm on Wednesday, many of the tourists were brought back to hotels in Lachung,” said an Army officer.
While nearly 250 tourists were hosted by Guru Nanak Lama Sahib Gurdwara in Chungthang, another round of evacuation started around 9am on Thursday and most were rescued by evening. But 70 bikers were again sent to the gurdwara for the night.
Though the road connectivity to Chungthang subdivision, Pegong, Lachung and Lachen was severely disrupted, the authorities worked overtime to restore a portion. “One-way traffic has been restored, and the situation almost normalized. Most of the stranded tourists have been evacuated. We are sending a bus to bring back the remaining tourists,” said Kiran ThatalSDM, Precious.
The Mitra from Phoolbagan, who had gone to Chungthang, said they had never thought their five-day trip would end up like this. The group was first held up at 20th Mile on their way to Pedong. “We were stuck on the road for three hours,” said Moumita Mitra, a homemaker. “We cut our trip short and returned to Siliguri. We did not get train tickets and so, taking a bus to Kolkata.”