3 army personnel dead, 6 soldiers missing as landslide hits military camp in Sikkim

Kolkata: Three soldiers were killed, four were injured, and six others were reported to be missing after a camp of the Indian Army at Chaten in the Mangan district in Sikkim, nearly 175 kilometres away from Nathu La on the India-China border.

The landslide in Chaten in the evening on Sunday followed days of incessant and torrential rainfall in the region over the past few days. The deceased had been identified as Havaldar Lakhwinder Singh, Lance Naik Munish Thakur, and Porter Abhishek Lakhada, a defence official said on Monday, adding that the mortal remains of the soldiers had been recovered.

The missing six included an officer of the Indian Army as well as his wife and daughter. The search and rescue operations are on, despite difficult terrain and challenging circumstances.

R Telang, the chief secretary of the Government of Sikkim, reviewed the situation in the northern region of the state during a video conference with the state officials in the evening on Monday and asked for arranging a team of the National Disaster Response Force from Siliguri in West Bengal to be deployed at the scene of the landslide at the Indian Army camp in Chaten and join the search and rescue operations.

Lt Gen Zubin Minawala, GOC of the Trishakti Corps of the Indian Army, visited the site to oversee the rescue operations.

Nearly 100 tourists got stranded at Lachen, a town near the ill-fated Indian Army camp, due to the landslide. The state’s Director General of Police, Akshay Sachdeva, said that the government, in coordination with other agencies, had on Monday started evacuating 1678 tourists, who had been stranded at Lachung and Chungthan in Mangan for several days after landslides had blocked the main roads linking North Sikkim with the state capital Sikkim.

Meanwhile, inclement weather disrupted the search operations for eight tourists, who went missing after their vehicle skidded off the road and plunged into the river Teesta more than 1,000 feet into the river near Munsithang along the Lachen-Lachung highway in the state on May 29. The surge in water level in the river forced the authorities to suspend the search operations. The incident killed the driver of the tourist vehicle and injured two tourists, who were from Odisha. The missing eight included Itashree Naik Jena, a secretary of the BJP Mahila Morcha (women’s wing) in Odisha, and three other members of her family. A newlywed couple from Uttar Pradesh and two men from Tripura are also among the missing, local officials said.

The tiny northeastern state on the India-China border has received heavy rains since May 29. Incessant downpour triggered landslides in several places in North Sikkim, damaged bridges in Phidang and Sangkalang, and severed road connectivity to many places, including to well-known tourist destinations like Lachen, Lachung, Gurudongmar, the Valley of Flowers and Zero Point. The Teesta river swelled by 35-40 feet and disrupted connectivity at several places in the state.

Telang, the chief secretary of the state, asked the officials to prioritise the restoration of power supply as well as mobile and landline connectivity.

The personnel of the Border Roads Organisation launched immediate rescue and restoration operations across Gangtok-Chungthang and Chungthang-Lachen/Lachung sectors.

The Sikkim State Disaster Management Authority (SSDMA) and the Land Revenue and Disaster Management Department officially declared the devastation caused by incessant rainfall and landslides a "disaster" under Section 22(2)(b) of the Disaster Management Act, 2005.