Heavy rainfall since last night triggered landslides and brought down
trees along NH55 and NH10, disrupting a toy train and road traffic for
hours.
Narendra Mohan, the area officer of the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway,
said a tree had been uprooted and fallen on tracks and NH55, which run
parallel, at Rongtong. A Darjeeling-bound toy train was held up at
Rongtong for more than two hours after the tree fall.
"The diesel train with 35 passengers left NJP around 8.30am. However,
it had to stop at Rongtong because of the tree uprooted in the heavy
rainfall. It took almost two hours to remove the tree from the tracks
and the toy train resumed its journey towards Darjeeling at 3.30pm,"
said Mohan.
Rongtong is 20km from here.
The uprooted tree also disrupted traffic on NH55 between Gayabari and Tindharia at one end and Siliguri at the other end.
Traffic on NH10 was disrupted for five hours as heavy rain had ripped
out a tree and caused a landslide. The tree fell on the highway at
Labarbotay, 55km from here, while the landslide hit the road further
20km away.
"It has been raining continuously since last night and this led to
landslips at several spots on NH10. The two major disruptions were at
Labarbotay, where a tree had fallen on the highway, and another spot
20km further uphill. Vehicles had been stuck since noon and traffic
resumed when the highway was cleared at the two spots around five hours
later," said a source.
The Regional Meteorological Office in Jalpaiguri said the rainfall
would continue throughout sub-Himalayan Bengal for the next few days.
"The southwest monsoon has set in and is strong over the region. This
is leading to consistent rainfall in the sub-Himalayan Bengal. Heavy to
very heavy rain, measuring 70mm to 200mm, has been forecast in
Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri, Alipurduar and Cooch Behar districts in the next
48 hours," said a Met Office source.
In 24 hours till 8.30am today, it had rained around 70mm in
Darjeeling. In other areas, the rainfall ranged between 20mm and 60mm, a
Met Office source said.(TT)
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