Sikkim flash floods: One soldier out of 23 missing has been rescued
At least eight people have been killed and 49 others, including 23 army personnel, went missing due to the cloudburst over Lhonak Lake in north Sikkim that triggered the flash flood.
Last UpdatedOct 4, 2023 20:55 IST 
Published byOne of the 23 missing Army personnel in the Sikkim flash floods has been rescued, officials said on Wednesday. A cloudburst in North Sikkim caused a sudden rise in the water level of the river Teesta and triggered flash floods.Â
At least eight people have been killed and 49 others, including 23 army personnel, went missing due to the cloudburst over Lhonak Lake in North Sikkim that triggered the flash floods.
Sources told India Today that the rescued soldier's condition is stable and he is currently undergoing medical care.Â
Troops of Trishakti Corps of the Indian Army have launched a massive search and rescue operation to locate the missing soldiers.
"The family members of the missing Army personnel have been contacted and informed about the situation. All other soliders posted in Sikkim and North Bengal are safe," sources said.
Those posted in the flash-flood-hit areas are currently unable to contact their family members due to disruptions in mobile communication.
Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh prayed for the well-being of the missing army personnel.Â
"The Glacial Lake Burst at Lonak, Sikkim is deeply heart-wrenching. Relief and rescue operations in the midst of extremely bad weather are in progress. Praying for the well-being of those army personnel, who are missing due to this tragedy," Singh said in a post on X.
So far, 45 people have been rescued, including 18 injured. Several towns, including Dikchu, Singtam and Rangpo, located in the Teesta basin, have also been flooded by the upsurge in the river.
Officials said that sections of National Highway-10, the main link between Sikkim and the rest of the nation, has been eroded due to flooding. They further noted that a flood warning has been issued for North Bengal and Bangladesh, which the Teesta River traverses.
Among the dead, three bodies washed up in North Bengal, while the other five were recovered from Golitar and Singtam regions.
Born in Pauri district of Uttarakhand, Manjeet Negi did his early schooling from his village school near Rishikesh and then moved to the town for secondary education. Later, he did his graduation from Hemavati Nandan Bahuguna University. In the year 2000, he did his journalism diploma from Kurukshetra University and started his career with Doordarshan News and started reporting on defence forces from the 2001 Bhuj earthquake. In his career as a defence correspondent, Negi has had the opportunity to report exclusives from world's highest battlefield Siachen Glacier in the north to the Andamans in the South and from the Rann of Kutch in the west to the Arunachal Pradesh border with China in the East.
A regular news-breaker on matters of national security and military affairs, Negi considers the coverage of he Kedarnath tragedy of 2013 as the highest point of his career. During the grave disaster at Kedarnath in June 2013, Manjeet Negi was the first and only TV reporter who walked for 55 Kms on the hilly track to reach the Kedarnath shrine. Spending his first night in the complex amidst several hundred dead bodies around him, Negi says he saw Lord Kedar in his dream. After the Kedarnath disaster, the writer got another opportunity to cover another disaster in the Nepal earthquake in 2015 for the Aaj Tak channel. During the reporting of that disaster for about 10 days, the writer got an opportunity to witness and report the large scale relief and rescue operations undertaken by the Indian Army and the Indian Air Force.
Besides reporting, he is also a skilled mountaineer. With Nehru Institute of Mountaineering and Garhwal Regiment, he has undertaken mountaineering expedition to Satopanth via Gomukh. Accompanying the Mount Manaslu mountaineering expedition of a Garhwal Regiment unit, he also reported about the expedition. He has also scaled the Dronagiri mountain near Joshimath in Uttarakhand. Manjeet Negi has also been honoured with a special award by the Union Home Minister, Shri Rajnath Singh for his reporting of Kedarnath disaster. He was awarded the best reporter award for his coverage of Nepal earthquake by India Today Group. At present, the writer has been working as Editor with Aajtak Channel of India Today Group.
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Reporting from Kolkata, Suryagni covers politics, crime and entertainment stories throughout the state of West Bengal and Northeast India. As a tri-lingual correspondent, he caters to India Today, Aaj Tak and Aaj Tak Bangla as well as various social media platforms of the organisation.
For India Today's digital space Aaj Tak Bangla, Suryagni has done ground reports and exclusive interviews from the world of Bengal politics and entertainment.
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