Rescue teams reach quake epicentre area, scramble to reach victims

From Saibal Gupta
Mangan(Sikkim), Sept 20 (PTI) Digging through landslide
debris, troops and relief teams are scrambling to rescue
victims of the earthquake in remote mountainous areas in North
Eastern Indian state Sikkim after they reached an area here on
Tuesday closest to its epicentre.
The death toll in Sikkim rose to 50 after the 6.8
magnitude quake struck this Himalayan state and neighbouring
areas on Sunday, officials said, adding the overall death toll
in the region rose to 79.
In some silver lining for thousands of rescue personnel,
the road connecting worst affected Mangan with the state
capital Gangtok, 65 km from here, was reopened to help them
make make a quicker push towards isolated areas in what could
be a herculean effort. However, fears of fresh landslides
posed a threat to the reopened road.
A small group of rescue personnel was brought in by army
helicopters here on Tuesday following a slight improvement in
the weather.
Officials here said that it could take three to four
days to reach northern villages like Chungthang, about 55 kms
from here, where people are feared trapped in debris.
"The road from Gangtok to Mangan is open. The number of
deaths as reported by the Sikkim government is 50. This
may increase further as rescue and relief teams reach into the
interiors," Indian Home Secreetary R K Singh told reporters in
New Delhi.
A PTI correspondent visiting some of the quake-hit areas
of Sikkim found the people still in a state of panic. They are
so frightful that they are not entering their houses which
have developed cracks or remained tilted after the calamity.
Many people were found sitting on roadsides, public
places and near temples. Hundreds of people spent a second
night in the open as aftershocks continued.
Rescue teams were also using explosives to try to force
their way through blocked roads.
Stranded tourists have not yet been able to leave
Gangtok and other places of the state as roads are either
damaged or blocked by landslides.
"We can return only after the roads open. We are still
in shock and cannot forget the trauma of the quake ... Most of
the time we are staying outside," said Joy Basu, a resident of
Sodepur near Kolkata visiting the mountain state with his
family.
A bus carrying 22 people which went missing in north
Sikkim since the temblor struck was yet to be traced.
A spokesman of the 17 Mountain Division said the bus
could be anywhere in a radius of 10 and 15 km along the quake
epi-centre Mangan and Chungthang.
Official sources said efforts are on to clear the roads
in the north district from Mangan, a small town ringed by snow
capped mountains. It is hoped that roads upto Chungthang and
Lachung would be opened by tomorrow.
The sources said relief and rescue operations have been
stepped up by Army and National Disaster Response Force(NDRF)
personnel with the improvement in weather.
"The biggest challenge now is to get the rescue teams to
the affected areas," said Sikkim Information Minister C B
Karki.
Food packets have been airdropped in inaccessible areas
of the mountain state and round-the-clock work is on to clear
debris and open roads still blocked due to quake-triggered
landslides. District collectors are overseeing the work.
The earthquake has left a trail of devastation
damaging roads, houses and other structures, uprooting mobile
phone towers and snapping communication and power lines.
Power and telephone lines have been restored in Gangtok.
But the fringe areas of the town are still without power and
are cut off from the rest of the world.
Communication links for areas outside Gangtok still
remained disrupted.