Hunt for the body in the garbage dump. (Suman Tamang)

Darjeeling, Feb. 26: A huge bog of debris slithered down the dumping chute of the hill town yesterday, possibly burying a 10-year-old girl.

The body of Sushmita Sarki is yet to be found.

A woman who was also caught in the avalanche of trash was, however, pulled out alive.

The Darjeeling municipality does not have a waste management system and the entire town’s waste is dumped on a hillside. Around 4 pm yesterday, the mound came crashing.

Sashi Tamang, 50, of Sister Nivedita Gram was waist-deep in garbage and sinking when some people spotted her.

Little Sushmita was not so lucky. She was last seen standing at the foot of the heap of trash with a white sack, moments before the mishap.

“She had left around 12.30 pm and did not return. I thought she had gone to a relative’s. But then I learnt about the avalanche. No one knows where she is,” said Phulmaya Sarki, her grandmother.

The girl used to stay with Phulmaya at Mangalpuri. Her father had died and her mother was in Gangtok.

“She was in a black track suit,” said Anita Chhetri, who was a few metres downhill.

Chhetri managed to scramble to safety when she saw the garbage sliding down.

Tamang was about 200 feet below the chute, where she had gone to collect wood.

Residents said this was the third instance of people being caught in garbage slides. “Luckily, no one was killed earlier,” a middle-aged man said.

About 17 tonnes of waste is dumped on the hillside everyday. When the weight becomes too much, it slides down to a hill stream 700 feet below.