Subhash Rajta

Shimla, August 17

The Indian Institute of Advanced Study (IIAS), Shimla, has written to the Union Ministry of Education and the local authorities for risk assessment of the complex in the wake of a massive landslide on Monday morning that left around 20 persons buried inside a temple in Summer Hill.

The landslide apparently triggered off from the edge of the outer lawns of the institute, taking away with it a fenced pathway of the institute and several deodar trees right in front of the lawns. “The IIAS has written to the authorities for risk assessment and preventive measures for the safety of the complex. The officials from the State Disaster Management Authority and the Meteorological Department have also visited the spot,” said a source from the institute.

The IIAS has covered the edge of the outer lawns with plastic sheets to ensure there was no water seepage into the slide-hit muddy area. Such was the intensity of the landslide that it took away portions of two roads, and a sizeable chunk of the Shimla-Kalka heritage railway track, before razing the temple, about 700-800 metres downhill from the IIAS.

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A road inside the complex, close to the main building, is sinking too. While it has been sinking for a while now, the landslide incident has made the authorities cautious. “We are altering the course of the water on the road to ensure it doesn’t flow towards the sinking side,” said the source.

Even as it’s widely believed a cloudburst triggered off the landslide, sources in the weather department think otherwise. According to them, neither the rain intensity was as high as required for a cloudburst nor was the impact area as large as witnessed in case of a cloudburst.