Speaker, Minister, MDC stranded in landslide near Pynursla

Shillong June 14:  A minor landslide near Pynursla in East Khasi Hills district on Thursday stranded hundreds of villagers including Meghalaya Assembly Speaker, Donkupar Roy, Education minister, Lahkmen Rymbui, and member of district council from Nongshken constituency, Grace Mary Kharpuri and other officials

However it took several hours for PWD (roads) men to come to the landslide spot to clear the debris that blocked the road since dawn.

The landslide occurred at Mawkyrnot village, below Pynursla.

The Speaker, Education Minister, and the MDC got stranded at the landslide spot while moving to to attend a school function at Umñiuhtmar village along the Indo-Bangladesh border, over 70 km from Shillong.

A Shillong Public Transport Service bus (ML01-7424) that passed through a narrow lane at the landslide spot also got stuck there. This added more woe to the villagers who failed to transport their agricultural products to be sold at Pynursla, as it was a market day on Thursday.

The driver of the bus was also not present at the spot when stranded villagers wanted to push the bus so that smaller vehicles could pass through the narrow lane as the entire road has been blocked.

Officials at the Pynursla civil sub division were informed about the incident and take steps to clear the debris but to no avail.

An annoyed Kharpuri who arrived at the landslide spot around 12 noon before the arrival of the Speaker and Education minister, rushed back to the PWD office at Pynrusla and sought immediate intervention of the officials to clear the road.

Kharpuri said that she did not expect such a laxity on the part of the PWD, that failed to clear the debris, especially when they knew that Thursday was a market day at Pynursla.

Parents who were to take their sick child to doctors at Pynursla, walked on foot, while many villagers had to carry their goods till Pynursla.

The Speaker reached the spot around 12.20 pm, and was also annoyed as the villagers stranded on the road and called up an executive engineer of the PWD (roads) directing him to act immediately.

Without waiting for the debris to be cleared, Roy, Rymbui, Kharpuri, other officials took passenger vehicles that stranded at the landslide spot to reach Umñiuhtmar.

The function was to begin at 1 pm, but delayed as guests stranded in the landslide. The debris was later cleared by PWD workers, and the road was restored around 3.30pm. The Speaker and other officials started from Umñiuhtmar for Shillong at around 5.30 pm.

Roy, Rymbui and Kharpuri went to Umñiuhtmar village be part of the inauguration of a newly constructed building of the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Higher Secondary School, Umñiuhtmar.

The school is run by the community under the management of the Dorbar Elaka Umñiuhtmar, the first school in the area to start the higher secondary (10+2) with arts stream. Class-XI (arts) academic session will begin this month.

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