NONGPOH: An occupant of a vehicle was killed and as many as seven vehicles were buried under the debris due to a massive landslide that occurred at Umling, 12 km from here, along Guwahati-Shillong Road in Ri Bhoi district on Sunday at around 5.30 pm.
All the vehicles were proceeding to Guwahati from Shillong when the incident occurred.
The deceased has been identified as Dhon Bahadur (25) hailing from Nagaland. It took almost four hours to retrieve the body of the deceased from the vehicle which was covered with debris from the landslide.
Among the seven vehicles which were covered by mud and boulders, two including a tanker were recovered, but the rescuers could not find any occupants of the vehicles as they presume the occupants of the vehicle may have escaped.
Two persons, who managed to escape with their lives, told this correspondent that their presence of mind helped them to escape the tragedy.
There was no rain during the incident and the eye witlessness said that loose soil along with boulders came down suddenly covering the moving vehicles.
The rescue team had to blast the boulders to retrieve the damaged vehicles.
The rescue team from Shillong and Ri Bhoi are carrying out the operations to clear the mud and boulders.
Many vehicles were stranded for several hours due to the incident and the traffic police had to divert vehicles coming from Guwahati to 20 Mile to pass through Umduh village road to come back to the national highway.
The vehicles going from Shillong have been diverted from Umling to Umduh and then to 20 Mile to take the national highway.
The place of occurrence is adjacent to NH 40 at Kargil petrol pump which is a landslide-prone area.
In July 26, 2012, three persons including two women were killed at 19 Mile along the Guwahati-Shillong Road, besides burying a Maruti 800 car and two trucks under the debris when a landslide occurred.
Alleged unscientific earth cutting work by the implementing construction firms undertaken since 2010 for widening the Guwahati-Shillong road (NH 40) from Jorabat to Umiam may be one of the reasons for the landslides, according to the residents here.
The fresh tragedy comes 14 days after the September 22 flash flood and landslides which had disrupted vehicular traffic on NH-40 for hours.Two massive landslides had occurred along the National Highway 40 at Shangbangla in Ri Bhoi.
The first incident occurred in the morning of September 24 when landslides threw traffic out of gear for hours on the Shillong-Guwahati road. The soil and boulders occupied both the lanes of the freeway, forcing traffic to a halt. However, no one was injured.
Another landslide occurred at the same spot at around 2.30 pm on the same day compelling the authorities to conduct another clearing operation which continued late in the evening. Later normalcy was restored.
Mawthoh blames unregulated flattening of hillocks for disaster
UDP legislator Jemino Mawthoh has raised serious concerns over rampant flattening of hillocks for the four-laning of the Shillong-Guwahati road (NH-40) without following the mandatory specifications.
“The flattening of the hillocks without following the specifications might lead to a major accident some day,” Mawthoh said in a statement issued here on Sunday.
He also wanted to know whether the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) had directed the firm implementing the project to flatten the hillocks as per the specifications.
“Several engineers have claimed that the exercise was carried out without following the specifications,” Mawthoh claimed.
He also announced that he would inspect the four-laning project on Tuesday.