Drivers were the first to rescue Sikkim tourists

GANGTOK: Driver Sukhraj Tamang's head keeps reliving how with his bare hands he prised out an unconscious tourist half-buried in the snow that had avalanched down a mountainside in the interiors of Sikkim on Tuesday morning, killing seven people.
"I had never seen anything like it. The mountain came tumbling down, burying the tourists playing in the snow," he said on Wednesday. Tamang drives a goods vehicle and was among the first responders.
Almost certain that no one's left behind, Army and Border Roads Organisation teams called off on Wednesday their search and rescue in the 15th Mile area where the avalanche killed three tourists from Nepal, two from Bengal and two from UP.

Heartrending tales emerged after people reached Gangtok from the site. "Of course I was scared. I was terrified," said Tamang, recalling how he and "two-three others" rescued a tourist.
The avalanche hit a road that connects Gangtok with Nathu La on the China border, trapping five-six vehicles with around 30 people, 23 of whom were rescued and taken to hospitals in the state capital, around 55 km away.

Avalanches are common in the Himalayan region, but it's perhaps the first in Sikkim in which tourists were killed, said tourism secretary Prakash Chettri.
Shaken by the disaster, authorities are introducing "restrictions on clicking selfies and dangerous behaviour in high-risk areas", said Chettri. "The mere sight of snow got the tourists all excited and they jumped out of their vehicles and started playing," he said.
There's also a debate over nomenclature, as district collector Tushar Nikhare insisted on using the term snow slide, instead of avalanche. "There is no equipment in the higher reaches to measure the volume of snow and conclusively define the phenomenon," said Gopinath Raha, head of IMD in Gangtok.
Watch Sikkim avalanche: Over 80 tourists feared trapped, 7 killed in tragedy