Like thick sheets of glass breaking on the lush undulating slopes of the Darjeeling tea gardens, the rainwater gushed down the hills into plains where more tea is planted an area called Dooars and Terai. By October 5th, The Queen of Hills, as Darjeeling is called, had become a waterfall; landslides and rapids tore out tea bushes, crumbled roads, and smashed bridges. Ponds formed in the tea fields of the plains. Not to mention the human toll as houses were swept away.
Indeed, the death toll has reached forty, with many more missing at the time of this article.
Although weather warnings from the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) resulted in evacuations is certain areas, there was little that could be done on October 4th and 5th when a massive cloudburst caused 11 inches of rain to pound the hills of Darjeeling and the plains of Dooars and Terai in Northern Bengal, India within a mere three hours. Some estimate the total rainfall at just over 15 inches.
Darjeeling—derived from the local language as "Land of Thunderbolt" and “Ling” for periodic loud thunderclaps and lightning that can occur even on a sunny day—produces some of the finest tea in the world. The cash crop constitutes the economic backbone of the area, and it is also renowned in the country for being a scenic hill station where, after tea, tourism stands as the main livelihood enterprise in the region.
Reliefweb.com estimated that some 6,500 households were displaced to relief camps along with tourists, some of whom even needed to be evacuated by helicopters provided by the state and Indian Armed Forces. Coming during a seasonal holiday, it was high season for tourists visiting the hills. The West Bengal state government stated that some ten thousand people had to be housed temporarily in camps while the storm raged and in its immediate aftermath due to landslides blocking roads. In some cases, entire hill roads were swept away by the torrents of rain streaming downhill like rapids.
While the humanitarian consequences were dire, tea gardens, particularly in Western Darjeeling District in the Hills and the North-Central part of Dooars in the plains, were massively damaged. In the hills, one of the worst hit areas is the scenic sub-division of Mirik, where a high-altitude lake and the confluence of two well-known tea gardens, Thurbo Estate and Gopaldhara Estate, meet to attract tourists. Goodricke Group Ltd., which owns thirty tea estates in the Indian states of West Bengal and Assam, and which is a subsidiary of Camelia PLC, the world’s largest tea producer as a consolidated entity, had established a premium tea lounge called Tea by the Lake in Mirik. It had also created a stall where people could sample fresh tea from Thurbo garden at the meeting point of Thurbo and Gopaldhara—initiatives aimed at promoting Darjeeling tea to tourists.
Shaibal Dutt, CEO of Goodricke Group Ltd. (the second largest tea producer in India) is facing his first major challenge in this role in the aftermath of the floods since replacing Arun Narain Singh in September. Dutt said all of the company’s five prestige gardens in Darjeeling were affected. However, the most severely hit was Thurbo, situated at the epicenter of the storm.
“At Thurbo, we might have lost between five and 10 Hectares of tea area where the bushes were kind of swept away along with the soil,” says Dutt. (After that initial estimate, the figure was revised down to around five.) Dutt also says that at their other Darjeeling gardens with such prestige names as Castleton, Margaret’s Hope, Badamtam, and Barrnsbeg Estates, a total of five Hectares of tea was wrenched from the ground either by landslides or the force of the torrents.
Contrary to the natural assumption that tea can be replanted (as it can in the plains), leaving deep gashes in the inclines that are unable to be replenished with saplings, the storm has caused permanent loss of tea in some places. Moreover, even where replanting can be done, it will take years for nascent plants to develop enough to evaluate their viability for making high-quality tea of the standard of Goodricke’s Darjeeling tea estates.
Derived from the Nepalese name for “tent,” Thurbo is one of the larger estates in Darjeeling. So, while Thurbo Estate was most severely impacted, the total loss only represents around 1% of the garden, as it spans an area of around 485 hectares (approximately 1200 acres).
The question really is what kind of tea plants were lost? Thurbo is known to produce tea that possesses a rare bouquet and commands premium prices.
For a time, Dutt was more concerned with Lakhipara Estate in Dooars, where roughly 50 Ha (or 123.5 acres) of bush lay drenched under water for a period of four to five hours before water accumulation from the deluge finally receded. Fortunately, the plants did not die, but Dutt describes damage to the property as extensive.
The sheer volume of rain, Dutt says was “unheard of for any time of the year; also, the fact that it happened in October when you don't really get a lot of rainfall—it was really astonishing.”
He adds, “A lot of the labor lines were flooded [typically clusters or a row of connected rooms, where the estate's workers live]. In one garden, we had flooding in the factory as well, but because of the quick action of the management, they could stop the water from entering the sorting room, which would have caused more damage.
“Although whatever was being manufactured was damaged because the factory had to be shut, the sorting rooms were saved. Other than that, a lot of damage to buildings [occurred], walls collapsed in three factories, and culverts were swept away,” Dutt elaborates.
Fortunately, Dutt says that Lakhipara Estate recovered after the water receded. “Tea plants are resilient, and although they were quite heavily submerged for four hours, ultimately, they recovered,” he says. “In terms of longer term damage [in the plains], there was only some soil erosion, which will take time to fill back again.”
This bodes well for the company as much of the CTC tea it sells on the Indian market, for which there is high demand, comes from this area, which produces tea that is rich in color and body.
Dutt says waterlogging also occurred in Gandrapara Estate (also located in Dooars) but, again, the plants were able to largely withstand the flooding. Those located at some altitude, such as Aibheel and Chalouni estates residing in the district of Jalpaiguri (and both also being known as Dooars Region Estates), suffered from no such problems.
Gopaldhara, which is located right next to Thurbo in the Mirik sub-division of Darjeeling District, was also affected. “As far as we can tell,” says Rishi Saria, co-owner of Gopaldhara and Rohini estates, “we lost around a hectare of bush in Gopaldhara [approximately two and a half acres]. We also lost significant young growth [recent tea transplanted from nurseries into the garden as part of the company’s replanting strategy to replenish the aging plants], which represented our future.”
Saria said that as bad as the situation was on his highest parts of Gopaldhara, due to falling brush and tea bushes slamming into other bushes, the lower elevations bore the brunt of the storm. “Not only did they absorb the rain that had fallen but also the water had nowhere to go but downstream," said Saria. "Although some people living in the village on the estate have lost lives, we have not lost any of our employees in the disaster."
Five bridges collapsed in the area. Notably, the Dudhia bridge collapsed, surprising many as it was thought to be quite solid due to its iron construction. The bridge passes over the the Balasun River, which runs by certain Darjeeling tea estates, including Jayshree Tea’s Balasun Tea Estate.
Jayshree Tea & Industries Ltd., which owns six gardens in Darjeeling, has reported sustaining damage to its Sungma Garden, but at the time of writing this piece, is assessing the full extent of the consequences on their estates. Connectivity is an issue with Rohini Road, one of the key conduits by which the hills are connected to the plains. It essentially succumbed to the force of water, caving in and sinking into the ground. Sumit Dalan, senior vice president of International Sales and Marketing at Jay Shree Tea & Industries Ltd, told this publication that only after the water had receded and the ground firmed up that repairs could take place. It was not for trying. Dalan contends that at least one crane was working on an unstable ledge; the road began to crumble from the edge under the weight of the crane and took it down with the rubble.
Arya Tea Estate, situated close to Darjeeling town and standing at an elevation spanning 3000-5900 feet, produces uniquely aromatic premium teas and lost around 2000 tea bushes, according to Garden Manager Subhajit Roy. “It is an aggregate area of approximately one acre,” he says. For a garden of that size (280 acres under cultivation), the loss is significant.
Roy also notes that eight labor houses were totally swept away, and severe damage was sustained to two factory guard walls, of dimensions spanning a width of 20 feet and height of 30 feet. While, according to Roy, landslides occur every year that damage tea bushes in the process, the damage sustained this time from barrages of soil and rock plunging downhill was exceptional.
Ashok Lohia, chairman of the Chamong Group, Darjeeling’s largest organic tea producer with 13 gardens in the district under their umbrella, had told Indian news agencies that he felt maybe 50% of the region sustained at least some damage. When this writer tried to speak to him, he was too emotional to go into detail, exclaiming: “We’ve destroyed Darjeeling!” The remark perhaps implies that decades of unsustainable cultivation practices have created conditions such that the bushes could not withstand the recent storm. His Chief Operating Officer Indranil Ghosh, provided WTN with a very detailed account of the damage.
As one might imagine, with so many tea plantations held in Darjeeling, the damage to Chamong Group estates was vast. Of their 13 gardens, 10 sustained damage, totaling 52 Hectares (128.5 acres). The damage ranged from 0.015 Hectares of bush loss at Rangaroon Estate (not even four percent of an acre) to 20 Ha (or 49.4 acres) in Pussimbing Estate with heavy losses in Marybong Estate evaluated at 11 Ha (or 27 acres). At Chamong Estate, the damage amounted to 7.6 Ha (or almost 19 acres), and at Lingia Estate, it totaled 5.4 Ha (or 13.3 acres).
Still, the area of damage doesn’t tell the whole story, according to Ghosh. Some estates with less area affected were more densely planted and thereby had many more tea bushes washed out per acre. Without going into too much detail, Ghosh has calculated that a total of 17,354 kg of commercially viable tea was lost when one converts the loss of raw leaf mass to processed tea (the ratio of raw leaf to processed leaf is generally 4:1). Other notable stats include tea that couldn’t be plucked due to the destruction of approach roads, which amounted to over 50 Ha in both Chamong and Marybong gardens as well as others, adding up to 123 Ha (or 304 acres). Hence, the total damage amounts to a hefty loss for the company—even in the short term.
Infrastructure impact was also substantial, according to Ghosh, with 25 culverts damaged or destroyed, 10 water tanks being washed out with damage to 6,098 metres of water pipe, 32 labor houses swept away, and 61 labor houses damaged. The Bungalow at Nagrifarm Estate sustained damage; six bridges at five gardens were made untraversable. And, factory and fencing at several gardens was damaged. Perhaps most significantly for protection of the tea bushes from the sun, twenty shade trees were downed in the storm.
Most compelling for Chamong garden managers and workers were the number of people who died. Four workers lost their lives but at least three others who were staying in the area may also have perished.
The above companies are just those whose officials responded to queries by WTN. Factoring in those Lohia’s contention that 50% of gardens were damaged, the full impact, one could reasonably conclude, is far more substantial and will probably take until next season to fully assess.
Why was the damage so intense?
Already, climate change has been identified as the main cause, which while certainly a significant element, Ghosh says it cannot be blamed alone. He identified various reasons for the extent of the damage:
- Unregulated construction has loosened the soil, weakening the ground;
- Planting of pine trees by the state Forestry Department for purposes of increasing the scenic views, which prevents undergrowth, has caused loosening of the soil, increasing the likelihood of landslides during storms;
- Dams and Hydroelectric projects in the neighboring state of Sikkim have caused an increase in water flow downstream, causing flooding of rivers in Darjeeling and other areas of Northern Bengal; and
- Malfunctioning of the Tala Hydropower Dam in neighboring Bhutan, triggering overflow in the Dooars tea region.
The Way Forward
In the future, afforestation programs will be essential to restore vegetation cover. Moreover, land-use regulations, perennially flouted, must be rigorously enforced, and construction must incorporate sound hazard mapping, with those areas prone to landslides highlighted. Also, infrastructure design planning ought to start with the incorporation of resilience principles.
In addition, National Highway 10 needs to be better protected.
Enhancement of early warning systems would also help residents deal with dangerous weather systems.
Former owner of Makaibari Estate and founder of Rimpocha (a grassroots village tea collective), Rajah Banerjee, known for pioneering biodynamic farming in Darjeeling, offers a five-year systematic solution. He says that “further erosion on affected [ground] can be pre-empted by planting fast-growing Legiminous trees.”
Trees like Calliandra calothyrsus (which grow quickly), Acacia, Gliricidia sepium, and Leucaena help prevent soil erosion with their substantial root systems stabilizing the soil. Also, these plants provide a protective canopy that can mitigate the impact of harsh rain and contribute organic matter to tea growing areas, which adds nitrogen to the soil, making it healthier.
Banerjee also recommends the planting of Weeping Lovegrasss (Eragrotis curuvula), a hardy perennial bunchgrass native to southern Africa that was introduced to the United States for erosion control and livestock feed. It is known for its dense root system. These, he says, should be interspersed with flowering plants known as rattlepods (genus Crotalaria) that are soil-enriching cover-crops that are so fibrous, they can be used in the manufacture of ropes.
Planting from the large number of species of the genus Indigofera, Bannerjee says will be key to preventing soil erosion due to their deep root systems being known for binding soil. These plants provide ground cover as well.
Banerjee points out that 10-foot collector drains would help greatly to direct excess rainfall away from tea plants if they are tapered and directed to ravines.
Whether these measures will be taken is doubtful, for the West Bengal government has a short memory and surely won’t offer any relief money for this. The politicians of the state have demonstrated a preference for prioritizing flashy events over practical action. Only time will tell if protecting tea-growing areas will be significant among the myriad of priorities that planters, the state government, local politicians, and NGOs, have. Otherwise, Lohia’s emotional lament for Darjeeling will truly be a disaster for tea in the area that has become defined by the unofficial moniker, “The Champagne of Teas.”
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