30 minutes hailstorm on Saturday triggers 12 hour traffic trauma in Darjeeling

DARJEELING: The delight over 30 minutes of hailstorm on Saturday that covered most part of Darjeeling town turned harrowing and traumatic for many tourists, including foreign visitors, trying to reach the hill station.

Former Indian wicketkeeper Farokh Engineer, who is visiting Darjeeling with others, was also not spared. It took Engineer and his group an excruciating 12 hours to cover eight kilometres in a chartered train of the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway (DHR) to reach Darjeeling from Ghoom.

The Darjeeling to Ghoom and back ride on the toy train is a two-hour journey. Engineer reached Ghoom at four on Saturday evening after starting around 1.30pm from Kurseong. However, he reached Darjeeling around four in the morning on Sunday.
UK resident Tim Littler said, “It was the longest night of my life. There were no officials to sort out the problem.”

More than reaching late, Engineer is upset over the alleged apathy shown by the Indian Railways and the police. “We did not find any railway staff or cops to help us. The local tour guides, whom we had hired, helped us negotiate the hailstorm and traffic,” he said.
The hailstorm also left locals with important family events and personal work traumatized.

Binay Singh had to attend an important pre-marriage ceremony at Liza Hill with other family members and was asked to reach by 4pm on Saturday. He started around 1.30pm from Darjeeling town as on normal days it takes about an hour and half to cover the distance. However, forced to take an alternative route to negotiate the hailstorm, he was only able to reach Liza Hill around 9.30pm.

“The road was slippery because of accumulation of ice pellets. We were not sure whether the event would take place. It would have been a bad omen to postpone the ceremony. But thankfully, after much deliberation, the ceremony started half an hour after we reached,” he said with a sigh of relief.

Professor Vivek Soondas had to attend a marriage reception at Kurseong on Saturday evening. He had a scheduled academic lecture at St Joseph’s College. He had wrapped it up by 2:30pm and left for Kurseong. “I have never witnessed anything like this before. I reached Kurseong 12 hours later,” he told ToI over phone. “Darjeeling is a hill station and such hailstorms here are natural. While we cannot prevent natural calamities, we can at least be prepared for them. The administration should ponder over the lack of any initiative to ease such bottlenecks. The only person I saw enroute trying to do anything was an elderly woman, who was clearing the ice with her own hands,” he said.

Similarly, Suzet Tamang had to wait for nearly nine hours inside a taxi to finally reach his home in Darjeeling from Siliguri. Tamang got caught in the traffic snarls at Rangbull, which is 15 kilometres from Darjeeling. “I reached Rangbull around 7.30 in the evening after travelling for two and a half hours. However, to reach Darjeeling town, located only 15 kms away, it took me more than nine hours. I reached home around 4.30 in the morning today,” he said.
The Met forecast for Darjeeling remains cloudy the entire week. Rainfall has been predicted over the next two days. While the minimum temperature is likely to hover between 3-5 degrees Celsius, the maximum temperature may remain between 7-16 degrees Celsius.