Sikkim flood toll18, search on for 22 Armymen, 76 others

New Delhi, October 5

Eighteen persons have died while 98, including 22 Army personnel, are still missing after yesterday’s flashfloods in the Teesta river basin in Sikkim, officials said today.

In a statement, the government of neighbouring West Bengal said four of the 18 bodies were identified as that of ‘jawans’. The flooding was caused by a sequence of three events. A cloudburst caused heavy rain, the Lhonak glacial lake gave way and the resultant flow of water breached the Chungthang dam, which caters to the largest hydropower project in the state.

Army extends help to civilians

• The Army has extended medical aid and telephone connectivity to civilians and tourists stranded in North Sikkim
• On Thursday morning, the Army started digging out vehicles from under the sludge at Burdang near Singtam in Gangtok

The National Remote Sensing Centre of ISRO has conducted a satellite-based study on the breach in the Lhonak lake in Sikkim at an altitude of 17,000 ft. The ISRO put out a statement detailing the glacial “lake burst”. “About 105 hectares of the lake was drained out, which may have caused flashfloods downstream”.

The National Disaster Management Authority has assessed the possible cause of the flashfloods in Sikkim as a combination of excess rain and glacial lake burst, resulting in high flow of water.

Meanwhile, rescue efforts are on to trace the 22 missing soldiers in Sikkim. Their family members had been informed about the situation, the Ministry of Defence said.

It said except the missing jawans, all other soldiers in Sikkim and North Bengal were safe. Mobile services have snapped in the flood-hit area due to which Army personnel posted in Sikkim and North Bengal have not been able to contact their family members. Sikkim and North Bengal are under the 33 Corps of the Army. Some 50,000 troops are stationed under various units of the corps.

The Army has extended medical aid and telephone connectivity to civilians and tourists stranded in Chungthang, Lachung and Lachen in North Sikkim. So far, 2,011 people had been rescued across the state while the number of calamity affected people was 22,034, the Sikkim State Disaster Management Authority said in its bulletin.