Sikkim Update

Heavy rain damaged more than 10 houses and triggered a number of mudslides in Sikkim's East district on Sunday in a repeat of Saturday’s storm and fury.
The downpour snapped power and water lines, a few hours after they were restored.
In Kopibari, below Deorali, a suburb of Gangtok, a number of houses were damaged when the water supply lines of the army collapsed, causing landslides.
The slush and debris from the steep incline rushed down to the village, hitting around 10 houses.
Two persons were injured.
The affected families have shifted to safer locations.
Similarly, in Tathangchen above Gangtok, a family has been asked by the district authorities to evacuate their house as the building has sustained damage making it unsafe for living.
Another building — a house owned by Pratap Tiwari, the additional secretary of the buildings and housing department — located on Indira Bypass was evacuated after a landslide left it perched atop a hill dangerously.
Damage to four more houses has been reported from Dikchu in East Sikkim, 40 km from here.At Burtuk, along the bypass, debris and boulders washed down by the jhoras have blocked Indira Bypass.
Repair work is still on.


Kalimpong:

The body of 20-year-old Suchitra Chettri, who had been missing from Saturday, was recovered from the bottom of a cliff at Ramitaytar on the outskirts of the town today.
Suchitra, who studied in Class XII in Sai Institute of Education and Research (formerly known as Kamal Jyoti School) here, had apparently committed suicide by jumping off the edge of the cliff from a height of more than 1,000 ft, police said.
According to family sources, Suchitra had been reprimanded by her uncle on Friday evening after she returned late from school and lied to him about it.
“She told me that the principal had held her back, but when I called up her principal, he denied doing so,” said her uncle G.B. Chettri.Originally from Teesta village, Suchitra, had been brought up by Chettri, who is a resident of East Main Road here.
Chettri had brought the girl to the hill town after her mother left them and her father hit the bottle. It was her uncle who lodged a missing persons’ diary at the Kalimpong police station on Saturday.
However, despite the efforts of the police, her family and friends, she remained untraced till today.Early this morning, a couple of boys, who were out for a stroll near Ramitaytar, came across a pair of lady’s sandals lying in the area. Having heard about the missing girl, they searched around and chanced upon what to them looked like a body below the cliff.
They immediately informed the residents of the area and with their help they went down and identified the body as Suchitra’s.
The police later recovered the body, and sent it for post-mortem.
“It could be a case of suicide,” said Humayun Kabir, additional superintendent of police, Kalimpong.
The principal of her school, D.K. Bhandari, said Suchitra was a disciplined girl and good in studies as well.
He said he could never imagine that she could take such a drastic step.