#OpJalRahat2 | Sikkim-Manipur Flash Flood Havoc: 3 Army Personnel Dead, 6 Missing; Over 500 Rescued in Manipur. Are SOPs for Safety of Army Camps put in Place in Disaster Prone Areas in Himalayan States?
Shimla/Lachen / Imphal, June 3 – The Indian Army’s Operation Jal Rahat-2 continues in full swing across flood-hit Manipur and Sikkim, but dark clouds of tragedy and unanswered questions hover over the rescue mission in Sikkim’s Lachen town and in rest of the vulnerable areas in the Himalayan states.
While three army personnel have been confirmed dead, six, including Lieutenant Colonel Pritpal Sandhu, his wife and daughter, remain missing as search operations enter Day-2.
The situation is especially grim in Lachen, North Sikkim, where the raging landslides swallowed an army camp during the night. But the real shocker?
Why was an army camp established in such a vulnerable, high-risk flash flood zone in the first place?
Isn’t it protocol for the Army to conduct thorough terrain surveys, geological risk assessments, and avalanche-prone zone checks before setting up any infrastructure, let alone a full-fledged camp?
The Army has been consistently losing valuable lives of its soldiers to natural hazards every year — be it in the snowbound terrains of Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, the landslide-prone slopes of Kinnaur and Uttarakhand, or the fragile zones of the Northeast and Arunachal Pradesh.
These aren’t isolated incidents — they point to a larger systemic gap in disaster risk assessment and planning.
Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) do exist for high-altitude areas — covering avalanche mitigation, early evacuation drills, and weather-triggered red alert protocols.
Yet, implementation often falls short.
Equipment like ground-based radar systems for avalanche detection, AWS (Automatic Weather Stations), satellite-based rainfall monitoring, and early warning sensors for glacial lake outbursts (GLOFs) should be actively deployed in all forward camps.
Real-time data sharing with IMD, SASE, and the National Centre for Seismology must be institutionalized rather than left to delayed response.
With Sikkim’s volatile topography – prone to glacial lake outbursts, landslides, and cloudbursts – the role of geological agencies and SASE (Snow and Avalanche Study Establishment) is now under sharp scrutiny.
Was there no prior warning? No mapping of flood risk zones?
Despite these serious questions, the Army has yet to respond to the safety concerns over camp locations raised by Himbumail.com.
The silence only amplifies the need for accountability, especially when lives are at stake.
It’s high time the Army becomes more wary of weather-related threats and natural hazards.
Mapping of vulnerable zones must be made mandatory before establishing camps.
Coordination with SASE, NDRF, SDRF, IMD, and geologists isn’t a formality — it’s a lifesaving necessity.
Natural disaster safety protocols must be woven into operational planning to protect our jawans from nature’s fury.
Meanwhile, in flood-ravaged Manipur, the Indian Army and Assam Rifles carried out massive rescue operations across Imphal East and West, evacuating over 500 people from submerged areas like Wangkhei, Heingang, Khurai, Lamlong, JNIMS, and Ahallup.
Ten flood relief columns equipped with BAUTs and inflatable boats were pressed into service, while emergency repairs were carried out on the breached Iril River boundary wall near Arapti Lamkhai in Thoubal district to prevent further inundation.
At JNIMS Hospital, Army boats ferried stranded patients to safety, while troops distributed nearly 800 bottles of drinking water and other essential supplies to displaced families.
As Army personnel continue to operate round-the-clock in coordination with civil authorities, a critical debate emerges:
When nature has already marked certain zones ‘hazard-prone’, can we really afford to ignore science and geotechnical wisdom while setting up vital military infrastructure?
The bravery on the ground is undeniable. But somewhere, the planners and experts owe the fallen – and their families – some hard answers.
#SikkimFlashFloods #ManipurRescue #ArmyCampSafety #HimbumailReport
