Army reaches last of Sikkim’s quake-hit villages

Soldiers were airlifted into 9 villages,carrying food and medicine for the nearly 1,000 stranded residents.

Soldiers have reached the last villages cut off by landslides from the powerful earthquake that shook the Himalayan region last weekend and killed more than 100 people,an Army officer said Friday.

The first soldiers were airlifted into the nine villages on Thursday carrying food and medicine for the nearly 1,000 residents stranded after last Sunday’s magnitude 6.9 earthquake,Major General S L Narasimhan said.

He said more soldiers were able to make their way into the villages by ground after hiking along mountainous paths.

Rescue efforts following the quake,which also struck parts of Tibet and Nepal,were hampered by heavy rains that had kept helicopters grounded. Mudslides triggered by the disaster blocked roads leading into remote,mountainous villages.

”It will take some time to clear the damaged roads,” Narasimhan said.

The helicopters were able to evacuate some injured people to hospitals for treatment,he said.

Meanwhile,a magnitude 3.9 aftershock Thursday night caused fresh panic in Sikkim state,one of the hardest hit,with thousands of people rushing out of their homes,said K S Topjay,a state government spokesman.

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There were no reports of damage from the aftershock,Topjay said.

He said no more bodies had been recovered since Thursday. The death toll stood at 116 73 in Sikkim,15 in West Bengal,nine in Bihar,11 in Nepal,seven in Tibet and one in Bhutan.

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