Siachen: Body of 1 jawan found

Army personnel, including high-altitude specialists, on Monday retrieved the frozen body of one of the victims after excavating a new site in their search for 10 soldiers buried alive last week by the deadly avalanche that swept through their post in Siachen Glacier at a height of 19,600 feet in eastern Ladakh.

“After intense and exhausting search operations, which entered its sixth day, rescue parties have hit the camp site and recovered the mortal remains of one martyr,” said defence spokesman Col. S.D. Goswami.

On February 3, a huge wall of frost and snow had crashed into the remote Siachen Glacier, smothering a vast area which also had an Army camp located on it in the southern side of the area. The post was being manned by a Junior Commissioned Office (JCO) and nine soldiers. Among the victims, four are from Tamil Nadu, three from Karnataka and one each from Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Maharashtra.

In some such cases avalanche victims are not located until spring thaw melts the snow. However, the joint effort by Army and Indian Air Force (IAF) rescuers with specialised equipment and sniffer dogs have been able to locate and pull the body of one of the soldiers from the thick layers of frost and snow.

Col. Goswami said a new camp has been set up at the location to coordinate the rescue efforts as well as to continue vigil in the sensitive area. “Rescue teams are cutting through up to thirty feet of ice at multiple locations where our soldiers could be buried,” he said, adding that probable locations are identified by using specialised equipment which was inducted along with the rescue teams.

Reports from Siachen said the efforts are being hampered by frequent blizzards, extreme freezing temperatures and low visibility apart from the effects of rarefied atmosphere in such high altitude. The teams are working round the clock, observing all precautions, since the unstable ice and snow in the region could trigger fresh avalanches.

The Army said rescue efforts will continue till all the bodies are retrieved.

The Siachen Glacier is located in the eastern Karakoram range in the Himalayas, just northeast of the point NJ9842 where the Line of Control (LoC) ends. As both India and Pakistan have claim over it, the stretch of snow is dubbed as the world’s highest battlefield. As many as 869 Indian Army personnel have lost their lives on the Siachen due to climatic conditions and environmental and other factors since the Army launched Operation Meghdoot to take the control of the strategically vital glacier in 1984 till December 2015.

In the recent such incident, four soldiers were killed by an avalanche in January this year. The worst, however, occurred in April 2012 when an entire Army location was swept in a massive avalanche in the area killing as many as 135 soldiers.

Prior to 1984, neither India nor Pakistan had any military forces in this area. In spite of avalanches and landslides claiming lives of the soldiers routinely in the area particularly during the winter when temperatures can drop as low as minus 60 degrees Celsius, the Indian military authorities maintain that the Army will stay in the region for strategic advantages.