NH10, the arterial road that connects Sikkim and Kalimpong with Siliguri and other parts of the country, remained closed for the fourth day on Tuesday.

The monsoonal downpour, which continued in the region, triggered landslides on some other hilly routes and swelled up the Teesta and some other rivers in the region.

While the Teesta flooded the Darjeeling-Kalimpong Road near Teesta Bazar and also some hamlets downstream, the Leesh, a river, breached its banks and flooded a locality in the Malbazar subdivision of Jalpaiguri district, prompting residents to move to safer places. Personnel of the Indian Army, who have a camp nearby, reached the spot and helped in relief and rescue work.

On NH10, a considerable portion of the road had caved in near View Point, Birkdale. The state PWD has engaged equipment and manpower to cut down the mountainside and widen the stretch. “It will take at least a week to restore the 100-metre-long stretch. Work is going on at the site but often, it is getting affected due to the rainfall,” said an official of the PWD.

Such a situation has made the Kalimpong district administration halt the movement of vehicles along the stretch of the highway, prompting vehicles to take a turnaround route via Gorubathan and Lava.

This morning, traffic movement along the Coronation Bridge at Sevoke also got affected because of a minor landslide and because a vehicle got stuck in the debris. The Teesta, on the other hand, touched a height of 145 metres near the bridge, which is less than five metres from the danger level.

“A section of truck drivers is taking other routes like Gajoldoba or Jalpaiguri-Mainaguri-Malbazar to head for Gorubathan, considering the precarious condition of NH 10. Yesterday, accumulated rainwater started flowing over the Coronation Bridge and the drivers were worried,” said a source.

In Darjeeling and Kurseong, it has rained 147mm and 104mm respectively during the past 24 hours, that is, till 8.30am today. Such rainfall has caused minor slides in the hills, including the Rohini Road, one of the popular roads that connect Siliguri with Kurseong.

Due to the slides, 12 houses were partially damaged under the Rangli-Rangliot block.

Early in the morning, as the Teesta river flooded the road that connects Darjeeling with Kalimpong, vehicles stopped moving along the route. Later in the afternoon, traffic movement resumed as the water receded.

In the Malbazar subdivision of Jalpaiguri, water levels of the Leesh river increased and it breached a portion of the embankment, while flooding Chanda Colony, a locality under Bagrakote panchayat.

People left their homes and walked up to NH31. The river also started flowing over a portion of the highway.

The administration acted promptly and equipment was brought to the spot to revert the river’s flow along its original course.

“It is necessary to change the river’s course or else, it will damage the highway. Also, iron meshes filled with boulders are being put to stop the river from breaching the embankment further,” said an official.

In the downstream, the Teesta has flooded Laltongbusty, a hamlet located in the outskirts of Siliguri, on its right bank. Totgaonbusy, which is in Malbazar subdivision and on the left bank of the river, has also been inundated by the river.

With such a situation, representatives of the Himalayan Hospitality & Tourism Development Network (HHTDN), an apex body of tourism stakeholders in the region, launched a campaign to save NH-10.

“We would request the Centre to send a technical committee of the Geological Survey of India to carry out a thorough survey and come up with a permanent solution for the highway,” Samrat Sanyal, the general secretary of HHTDN said.

“We will organise a signature campaign across the region and will send it to the Prime Minister and to the chief ministers of Bengal and Sikkim for their intervention,” he added.

Additional reporting by our Jalpaiguri correspondent