Nine people have been killed in a series of landslides, triggered by heavy rainfall, that have struck an army camp.
At about 7 pm local time on 1st June 2025, a series of landslides struck an army camp at Chaten in the Lachen District of Sikkim in India. It is believed that nine people have been killed, although at the time of writing six of these people were still missing, including an army officer, his wife and daughter.
Chaten is located at [27.7188, 85.5581]. This is a Google Earth image of the site, collected in March 2022:-
The best imagery of the landslides that I have found is on a Youtube video posted by Excelsior News:-
This still captures the site well:-
The image shows two main landslide complexes (plus one in the background). Each consists of a series of shallow slips on steep terrain – the one on the left has at least three initial failures, on the right there are also at least three). These have combined to create open hillslope landslides that have stripped the vegetation and surficial materials. Note the very steep lower slopes to the river.
These shallow landslide complexes are characteristic of extremely intense rainfall events, which saturate the soil and regolith from the boundary with the underlying bedrock. This causes a rapid loss of suction forces and a reduction in effective stress, triggering failure. The high water content of the soil then promotes mobility.
It is interesting to note that the natural vegetation has been removed from these slopes. It would be premature to assert that this was an underlying cause of the landslides, but it may have been a factor.
It appears that there has also been erosion of the riverside cliffs, which has left other parts of the camp in severe danger.
Sadly, given the terrain and the availability of people to participate in a rescue (which is one advantage of an event in an army camp), the prospects for those who are missing are not postive.