‘Roads cut off, walked 12 hours through forests’: Labourers share harrowing experience in flood hit Sikkim

Stuck for 144 hours with very little food and water, spending nights under the open sky on the streets, at least 100 Sikkim labourers finally walked for over 12 hours through dense forest to reach Chungthang from Lachung in North Sikkim, one of the worst affected areas by the glacial lake burst that hit Sikkim on October 4.

“We were stuck in Lachung for 6 days. Seventh day we started to walk. We walked for 12 hours to Chungthang and then to Mangan. From Mangan, we travelled by bus. When the flood hit, we were on higher ground towards hill top, so we didn’t face too many problems, but at the lower levels where many people died. Many buildings were washed away, damaged. We put our lives at risk but we thought we have to do this. Because up there, food and water was getting scarce. If we stayed there, then we would have surely died of starvation or another calamity. So few of us decided to take the risk. We are happy that we made it,” said one of the relieved labourers who is now headed to his home town in North Dinajpur in West Bengal.

“We crossed the Chungtang River through the temporary bamboo bridge. It was very scary. At times we felt we will fall into the river. But we stayed strong, kept our faith. The government and the Army helped us a lot. They arranged food and medicines for us,” another labourer added.

Another labourer said, “When the incident happened, we were sleeping. At around 12.30 am, I got a call from my elder brother. He just said one line, “The dam had burst. Run fast”. When I went outside, a large current of water was flowing. But somehow we managed to escape from there. We were left with just the clothes we were wearing. For hours together we had nothing to eat. We had our food in a Gurudwara. The army also supported us a lot. Through the army, we could speak to our families.”

According to these labourers who worked as masons, carpenters and plumbers in Lachung, 3000-4000 people are still stuck in Lachen. They said that stock of food and other essentials are fast depleting and very soon, maybe in the next couple of days, the people up there would go without food and drinking water.

As part of the rescue efforts and restoration of connectivity, including transportation and communication lines in flood-ravaged Sikkim, the state government is working round the clock with Trishakti Corps of Indian Army, ITBP, BRO, SDRF and NDRF. Buses have been arranged to rescue the hundreds of labourers stranded in Lachung.

The devastating floods washed away the vital Chungthang bridge, cutting off all communication with the rest of Sikkim. To establish communication, the Indian Army, with the help of locals, constructed a temporary bamboo bridge to supply essentials and rescue people.

A total of 156 tourists were evacuated by air on the fourth day (October 8). After the initial sorties, the weather packed up, and further evacuation had to be called off. On October 9, a total of 518 tourists were evacuated by helicopters.

Thus, a total of 674 tourists have been evacuated by air so far from North Sikkim out of the approximate 1700 tourists stranded there.

Also Read: Sikkim: Army allays apprehensions over explosives swept away by floods