Landslide Snaps Darjeeling-Teesta Route via Peshok, One-Way Traffic Restored After a Day

stretch of the busy Jorebungalow-Teesta Bazar road disappeared under a landslide on Monday morning, cutting off one of the hills' most heavily used arteries and stranding passenger and goods vehicles travelling between Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Gangtok.

The slide struck the road via Peshok, a route that carries a steady flow of traffic connecting the hill towns to Sikkim. According to officials who reached the site, a section of the road had practically vanished by the time rescue and repair teams arrived. Public Works Department engineers and local administration staff moved quickly, and road-clearing work began on what was described as a war footing.

By Tuesday, traffic movement along the Darjeeling-Teesta route, disrupted since Monday, had been restored, though only in a limited form. Authorities arranged one-way traffic to keep vehicles moving safely while repair work continues, and goods trucks have been advised to use alternative routes rather than risk the still-recovering stretch. Police and rescue personnel have been stationed along the affected section to manage the controlled flow of vehicles.

The disruption rippled well beyond Darjeeling district. Many passenger and goods vehicles were left stranded on both sides of the slide, and residents of Bardang, Singtam, Rangpo and other areas just across the Sikkim border found their daily commute and supply routes cut off for the better part of two days. For a region where a single road often serves as the only practical link between towns, a blockage of this scale is felt immediately in everything from school runs to vegetable deliveries.

There was a small silver lining reported alongside the disruption: the '20th Mile' area, closed to traffic for nearly a month because of earlier monsoon damage, was reopened for light vehicles starting Monday. Residents of Bardang and Singtam, who had been enduring a long-standing closure on that stretch, will welcome the relief even as the Peshok slide creates a fresh headache elsewhere on the same corridor.

This is far from an isolated event. The Darjeeling-Kalimpong-Sikkim road network sits on some of the steepest and most landslide-prone terrain in the eastern Himalaya, and by August the soil across the hills has typically absorbed two months of continuous monsoon rain, leaving slopes fully saturated and far more likely to give way even when rainfall itself eases. Local residents and transport unions have raised this pattern for years, arguing that patchwork repairs on slide-prone stretches like Peshok need to be replaced with proper retaining walls and wider carriageways rather than being reopened as quickly as possible after each incident.

For now, the priority is keeping the route passable. Travellers planning to move between Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Sikkim in the coming days should expect delays, check with local transport associations before setting out, and avoid the affected stretch after dark or during heavy rain, when the risk of a fresh slip is highest. Goods vehicle operators in particular should confirm the recommended alternative routes before dispatching loads, since the one-way arrangement at Peshok will only accommodate limited traffic volumes until the road is fully repaired.

With more rain forecast for the region through the rest of the week, district authorities and PWD teams are expected to keep monitoring vulnerable stretches along this corridor closely.

Have a tip on this story?

WhatsApp Khabar Darjeeling at our channel or email nowanad@gmail.com. Your identity will be protected.

No comments yet

Be the first to share your thoughts!