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Damage caused by torrential rain; right of way dispute involving the Impur Mission |
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To Mokokchung. On the way I saw for the first time the damage down by the cloud burst that occurred here on the evening of July 31st. The rain only lasted from 8 pm to about midnight, but the damaged done was extraordinary. There was no wind, and it was all done by water falling. The trees were broken and uprooted. The Impur Mission Compound fencing was totally destroyed so that the boundaries could not be traced, the iron gate and padlock being lost entirely and not yet found, though they can hardly have dissolved in the rain. Enormous slips were visible like great scars on both sides of the Mening valley and the streams we crossed which used to be little streams, and dry now, had been converted to great chasms littered with debris of rocks and broken trees. In places the surface of the ground where there was no watercourse at all had been denuded of all growth and cleaned as if for jhuming almost, while elsewhere huge rocks had been carried down from the top of the hill and left where there were no rocks before. On the way a complaint came that a man bringing buffaloes from the plains had been held up three days because Dr. Bailey would not let him take his buffaloes through the Mission Compound, when there is a regular and recognized right of way much older than the Mission. Eventually he had quite justifiably broken a way through, leaving the next move to Dr. Bailey, who is a little apt to forget that he has no sort of title to occupy the land he does. I called in to see Miran on my way through Mokokchung village. He seemed very bad and cannot last long. |
