By Mahawish Rezvi
ISLAMABAD, April 8 (Reuters) – Pakistan’s military hoped for
a miracle on Sunday as rescue teams searched for 124 soldiers
and 11 civilians buried by a Himalayan avalanche near the Indian
border, with no sign of survivors more 24 hours later.
The avalanche engulfed a Pakistani army battalion
headquarters near a glacier early on Saturday, leaving snow up
to 80 feet (25 metres) deep over an area a kilometre wide.
The victims are trapped in one of the most unforgiving
environments on Earth, at an altitude of 15,000 feet (4,500
metres) near the Siachen Glacier in the Karakoram mountain
range.
“Let’s hope for a miracle,” a military official, who asked
to remain anonymous, told Reuters.
Helicopter rescue teams and troops on the ground with
sniffer dogs were racing against time.
“On Wednesday and Thursday we expect cloudy conditions and
some snow fall as well which will make it difficult for any
rescue operations to continue,” said meteorologist Mohammed
Hanif on state television.
The area is also one of the world’s most militarily tense
frontiers, where the Indian and Pakistani armies have confronted
each other over disputed territory for decades.
Eleven civilian employees of the military were buried under
the snow along with the soldiers of the 6 Northern Light
Infantry Battalion, the military said in a statement.
The army listed the names of the missing on its public
relations website, from officers to waiters to barbers.
The military has ruled Pakistan for more than half of its 64
year history, setting foreign and security policy even when
civilian governments are in power, as is the case now.
Siachen is in the northern part of the Himalayan region of
Kashmir. The no-man’s-land of Siachen is 20,000 feet (6,000
metres) above sea level.
Military experts say the inhospitable climate and
avalanche-prone terrain have claimed more lives than gunfire.
Muslim-majority Kashmir is at the heart of hostility between
India and Pakistan and was the cause of two of their three
full-scale wars since independence from Britain in 1947.
Siachen has been described as the world’s highest
battlefield. Indian and Pakistani troops have fought at
altitudes of over 20,000 feet in temperatures of minus 60
degrees Celsius.
Between 10,000 and 20,000 Indian and Pakistani troops are
stationed in the mountains above the glacier.
A tentative peace process is under way, with Pakistani
President Asif Ali Zardari scheduled to meet Indian Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh on Sunday, the first visit to India by a
Pakistani head of state since 2005.
(Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Nick Macfie)
