EMN
Dimapur, August 27
ONly after about a week has Nagaland’s Home Minister, Y Patton on Thursday turned up to visit Phesame village as the village struggles following a massive landslide this month.
Phesama village is about 10 kilometers away from Kohima town, the state’s capital.
The politician visited the affected site in the evening to take “stock of the situation” and reportedly “shared the pain and sorrow with all the affected families”, according to a DIPR report.
During his visit, the politician asked the village councils of the area to ‘arrange necessary accommodation for those students coming from other places’. He assured to pay their house rents or hostel rents for two months.
The Home minister also donated Rs. 2 lakh to the village council as use for ‘emergency relief’ and Rs. 50,000 to the youths.
Terming the landslide at Phesama village as the ‘biggest landslide in Nagaland’, the Home minister asked the leaders of the village council to submit a detailed report to the legislator of the area so that the state government ‘would forward it to the disaster management authorities for necessary action’.
The minister was accompanied by the representing member of Legislative Assembly of the area, superintendent of police of Kohima district and leaders of the Naga People’s Front youth wing.
Incessant rainfall during the early parts of the month had triggered a massive mudslide along National Highway-29 straddling Phesama village below Kisama Naga Heritage village in Kohima.
Following the landslide, 29 houses were ‘dismantled’–understood to be a measure of precaution–while 48 families were affected. 40 houses have been damaged so far, as per reports from the chairman of Phesama Village, Vimedo.
Today, villagers and volunteers from nearby Khuzama and Pfuchama village cleared a passage for an alternative road for Pfuchama village as the only lifeline of the area has been cut off after a series of mudslides began this month.
The villagers have requested commuters and passengers to cooperate with the volunteers, who are guiding travelers, when crossing the area.
Personnel of the Border Roads Organization are undertaking all efforts to clear the road by putting into service heavy machineries including bulldozers and excavators to clear the area.
Members of the village council of Phesama have acknowledged various government departments, civic organizations, students’ groups and youths for their support and help in cash, kind and ‘in prayers’.
A caution that the council has given to citizens is of a high-tension power line. The post might endanger commuters and workers if it falls, the council members said.
There were no details from the members about what was wrong with the power line, that whether it had fallen or the lines had broken. The council has requested the Power department to undertake necessary arrangements at the earliest to avoid any untoward incident.
Manipur affected; soaring prices
The massive landslide at Phesama has cut off the Imphal-Dimapur highway, the key supply route for land-locked Manipur.
According to the Times of India the landslide has halted the flow of commodities along the route coupled with dwindling stock in the capital.
These factors have ‘combined to make prices of vegetables soar’, the report says. Traders are said to be selling onion at Rs 70 to Rs 80 per kilogram.
Prices of potato, tomato, beans and pulses are also said to have increased.
‘People have already begun frantic buying of fuel over the last couple of days even as BRO personnel work overtime to repair the landslide-hit portion of the highway.
There is likelihood of soaring fuel prices in Imphal’s grey markets as some of the fuel outlets’ stock are depleting’, the report said.
Because of the landslides, more than 200 Imphal-bound loaded trucks and passenger buses have been stranded in various parts of Nagaland, mostly at Dimapur.
The landslides have affected more than 100 metres of the national highway, official sources said.
On Saturday, an Imphal-bound passenger bus and a BRO excavator were swept downhill by the mudslide though no one was injured.
