KOLKATA: Five city girls, who were marooned in a remote village at Rishikhola when the Teesta flash flood washed away the sole bamboo bridge connecting their homestay on a hilltop with the mainland, returned to their Kolkata homes on Friday. They were rescued by army and cops but had to trek 8kms along a forest, riverbed and broken roads to reach safety. They were escorted in a car to New Jalpaiguri.
The girls in their mid-20s – school friends who were on their first joint trip – recounted the horror of the “unplanned adventure” to TOI as they returned to Kolkata on Friday morning. “I am still in shock. I shudder to think about the time we spent there and the way we trekked back to safety. We had planned a fun trip by the side of a river but it turned out to be perhaps the greatest adventure of our lifetime,” said Swagata Bhattacharya, a graphic designer and a Salt Lake resident.
The group comprising friends Bhattacharya, Poulami Debnath, Aditi Banerjee, Usmita Roy and Purbasha Sashmal had left Kolkata for the hills last Saturday and had spent two nights in Darjeeling before they reached their homestay at Rishikhola on Tuesday.
“We had to cross a bamboo bridge over the Rishi river to reach our homestay. We were the only tourists at the homestay and were excited about two nights of stay there. But trouble broke out when the power went off around midnight and then we could hear the sound of the flowing river changing from a smooth ripple to roar. It had also started raining. The next morning, we woke up to find the riverbed devastated and the wooden bridge gone,” said Debnath, a dietician from New Town.
What left them more scared was the fact that there was no electricity, phone and internet connection. “We were assured safety by the homestay owners. On Wednesday, we could somehow contact our families with a feeble internet connection but couldn’t tell them about the state we were in, thinking they would panic. Our parents had already contacted the control room number shared by the Sikkim government and had informed them about our whereabouts. By Wednesday night, Sikkim police reached our homestay and told us that we would be rescued the next morning,” said Bhattacharya.
On Thursday morning, a team of Sikkim Police, Kalimpong Police and Army were at their homestay as they escorted them through a forest and a slushy riverbed to the nearest motorable Rishi Rhenock Road. “But the bridge on that road was also blocked by a landslide and we had to walk another 5km to reach Pedong, where cops arranged for a car in which we travelled to New Jalpaiguri,” said Bhattacharya.
The group boarded Thursday night’s Padatik Express to reach the city on Friday morning.
The girls in their mid-20s – school friends who were on their first joint trip – recounted the horror of the “unplanned adventure” to TOI as they returned to Kolkata on Friday morning. “I am still in shock. I shudder to think about the time we spent there and the way we trekked back to safety. We had planned a fun trip by the side of a river but it turned out to be perhaps the greatest adventure of our lifetime,” said Swagata Bhattacharya, a graphic designer and a Salt Lake resident.
The group comprising friends Bhattacharya, Poulami Debnath, Aditi Banerjee, Usmita Roy and Purbasha Sashmal had left Kolkata for the hills last Saturday and had spent two nights in Darjeeling before they reached their homestay at Rishikhola on Tuesday.
“We had to cross a bamboo bridge over the Rishi river to reach our homestay. We were the only tourists at the homestay and were excited about two nights of stay there. But trouble broke out when the power went off around midnight and then we could hear the sound of the flowing river changing from a smooth ripple to roar. It had also started raining. The next morning, we woke up to find the riverbed devastated and the wooden bridge gone,” said Debnath, a dietician from New Town.
What left them more scared was the fact that there was no electricity, phone and internet connection. “We were assured safety by the homestay owners. On Wednesday, we could somehow contact our families with a feeble internet connection but couldn’t tell them about the state we were in, thinking they would panic. Our parents had already contacted the control room number shared by the Sikkim government and had informed them about our whereabouts. By Wednesday night, Sikkim police reached our homestay and told us that we would be rescued the next morning,” said Bhattacharya.
On Thursday morning, a team of Sikkim Police, Kalimpong Police and Army were at their homestay as they escorted them through a forest and a slushy riverbed to the nearest motorable Rishi Rhenock Road. “But the bridge on that road was also blocked by a landslide and we had to walk another 5km to reach Pedong, where cops arranged for a car in which we travelled to New Jalpaiguri,” said Bhattacharya.
The group boarded Thursday night’s Padatik Express to reach the city on Friday morning.
