‘Holy’ streams emerge after Palamu rain

DALTONGANJ: Three days of incessant rain followed by a landslide in Kharganjuwa hill, around 30km from Daltonganj, has led to the formation of four small streams. Witnesses said around 5.30pm on Saturday, they heard a roaring sound before they saw the mudslide and uprooted trees.
Confirming the report, Palamu DIG Saket Kumar Singh said a two-inch wide stream gushed out of the Kharganjuwa hill near Barki Lami pahar for hours.
Sub-inspector of police S K Malviya had rushed to the site on suspicion of Maoist triggering some sort of blast. He reiterated the DIG’s words.
‘Bahut Meetha hai (The water is very sweet)’ said SI Malviya after drinking from the stream.
“Preliminary report said there was a sound like that of a blast. As this area is Maoist-dominated, we thought any IED ( improvised explosive device) was hidden there and might have gone off. So a team of police officials led by DSP H L Ravi was rushed to find out.” DIG said.
The locals, on the other hand, believed that the emergence of stream was “a miracle”. Many from Chhattisgarh and other parts of the state flocked to the spot to have a glimpse of the stream that they believed was “holy as it emerged on the auspicious occasion of ‘rath yatra’ and Eid”.
However, DSP H L Ravi threw some light on the “miracle”. “There is a dam 2 km away from this hill. The dam water must have caused some internal damages to this pahar and this led to water gushing out of the hill,” he said.
Nitish Priyadarshi, a former professor of Geology at Ranchi University, said the hills in Jharkhand are more than a million years old and most of them have become ‘dead’ comprising soil.
“This particular hillock in Chainpur consists of granite, gneiss and schist which are essentially metamorphic rocks and the hillock must have suffered major landslide along a weak point due to the recent rainfall,” he said.
Priyadarshi ruled out human intervention and said the landslide was triggered by rain. “The streams are coming out from the accumulated water of the hillock that got released by crumbling down of almost half of the hillock,” he said.
Palamu civil surgeon K N Mishra has rushed in a team of doctors led by S C Jha to dissuade people from tasting the water as it might pose health risks.