This tiny villages tiny post

The tiny village of Naga near Tung has been cut off from the rest of the world ever since the earthquake hit Sikkim on Sunday.

Listen to this article

00:00

1x 1.5x 1.8x

The tiny village of Naga near Tung has been cut off from the rest of the world ever since the earthquake hit Sikkim on Sunday. While many houses have been razed to the ground and others have developed cracks,the post office this remote corners window to the world here stands intact.

There is a tiny room adjacent to the post office that doubles up as the post masters family quarter. The post master,his wife and his brother-in-law make up a team that runs the postal service in this mountainous terrain letters being the only link for many who cannot afford mobile phones or the Internet.

We cater to a number of villages from here like Tung,Naga and Manul all tiny mountain hamlets with a sprinkling of 20-30 huts. But the post office is like a nerve centre with people from the villages turning up a couple of times in a week to check mail. At times,my husband or my brother goes out to distribute letters, said the post masters wife,adding that the post office must have been several decades old.

Her husband was away in Mangan,where their main office is located,when the quake occurred he is said to be safe. And her brother,who works as a driver,was out on the road on that day. When the earth began shaking,a tree fell on his jeep,and six passengers and he were trapped for quite some time before other villagers arrived to extricate them. With his leg seriously injured,he is confined to bed now.

Like the post masters family,Tenzing Bhutia,an 8-year-old boy,also escaped miraculously after being buried under a pile of twisted metals and debris for over 30 minutes. A Class III student,Tenzing,with a bandaged head,is now undergoing treatment at a relief camp set up by the Army.

When the quake hit,Tenzing was inside the house while his parents had gone out. The house collapsed and he lay unconscious underneath. His parents rushed home and could take him out only after a long struggle.

At the relief camp now,he was playing merrily with another injured boy,Chungnam,also 8 years old. Chungnam had suffered a leg injury from a flying missile. The Army personnel said the two were out of danger now.