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“Lest we forget” - from Save The Hills

By himalayanreview

From: Visions of Hell
http://savethehills.blogspot.com/2008/06/lest-we-forget-oct-1968-in-pictures.html

By: Praful Rao

Pictures from Das Studio




These amazing photos of the Oct 1968 Disaster in Darjeeling district are reproduced here kind courtesy Das Studio, Nehru Road, Darjeeling.
Having lived through the nightmare 4 decades ago as a young college student, these photographs bring back vivid memories.
To whose who don’t know about the 1968 disaster in this part of the world, here is a brief on it:-

“In 1968, floods in the Darjeeling area destroyed vast areas of W. Bengal and neighboring state of Sikkim by unleashing about 20,000 landslides and killing thousands of people, report Sankar et al. These slides were caused by a heavy downpour ranging from 500-1000 mm in three days. Such incidents have a return period of 100 years claim the meteorologists. The impact of the rains was such that the Darjeeling-Sikkim road was breached at 92 places and the road transport was totally disrupted.”

- Excerpt from “West Bengal Needs Better Disaster Management” by VK Joshi

http://www.kalimpong.info/category/picture/

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