Overview

• GSI officials said they issued an orange-level landslide bulletin around 2:15 pm on October 4 for multiple Darjeeling blocks, with public access via the Bhusanket portal and Bhooskhalan app.
• Rain gauges recorded 393 mm in Kurseong over October 4–5, and experts noted that 130–150 mm in a single day can trigger slides in October due to fully saturated soils.
• Provisional tolls report at least 28 deaths in Darjeeling, with some accounts putting the figure above 35 across North Bengal, and roughly 500 tourists were evacuated.
• Disaster specialists said advance IMD forecasts were not translated into local action, citing gaps in monitoring such as missing block-level weather stations and limited community preparedness.
• Environmentalists pointed to unregulated construction on riverbeds and steep slopes, deforestation, and riverbed extraction as risk multipliers, urging enforcement of floodplain zoning and scrutiny of large dam projects.