ISLAMABAD - Pakistani soldiers dug into a massive avalanche in a mountain battleground close to the Indian border on Saturday, searching for at least 135 people buried when the wall of snow engulfed a military complex.
More than 12 hours after the disaster at the entrance to the Siachen Glacier, no survivors had been found.
“We are waiting for news and keeping our fingers crossed,’’ said army spokesman Major General Athar Abbas.
“It’s on a massive scale,’’ he added. “Everything is completely covered.’’
The military said in a statement that at least 124 soldiers and 11 civilian contractors were missing.
Siachen is on the northern tip of the divided Kashmir region claimed by both India and Pakistan. The accident highlighted the risks of deploying troops to one of the most inhospitable places on earth.
Related: Globe Gift: Pakistan Present to India
The thousands of troops from both nations stationed there brave viciously cold temperatures, altitude sickness, high winds, and isolation for months at a time.
Troops have been deployed at elevations of up to 22,000 feet and have skirmished intermittently since 1984, though the area has been quiet since a cease-fire in 2003. The glacier is known as the world’s highest battlefield.
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani expressed shock at the incident, which he said “would in no way undermine the high morale of soldiers and officers.’’
The headquarters in Gayari, situated at around 15,000 feet, is the main gateway through which troops and supplies pass on their way to other more remote outposts in the sector. It is situated in a valley between two high mountains, close to a military hospital, according to an officer who was stationed there in 2003.
“I can’t comprehend how an avalanche can reach that place,’’ said the officer. “It was supposed to be safe.’’
More soldiers have died from the weather than combat on the glacier, which was uninhabited before troops moved there.
Conflict there began in 1984 when India occupied the heights of the glacier, fearing Pakistan wanted to claim the territory.
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"US to assist in Pakistan’s search for 135 buried in avalanche" Associated Press, April 09, 2012
ISLAMABAD - The United States sent a team of specialists Sunday to help Pakistan search for 135 people buried a day earlier by a massive avalanche that engulfed a military complex at a mountain battleground close to the Indian border.
At least 240 Pakistani troops and civilians worked at the site of the disaster at the entrance to the Siachen Glacier with the aid of search dogs and heavy machinery, said the army. But they struggled to dig through some 80 feet of snow, boulders, and mud that slid down the mountain early Saturday morning.
Pakistani Army spokesman General Athar Abbas said Sunday evening that it was unclear whether any of the people who were buried are still alive....
The Pakistani Army chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, visited the site Sunday to supervise rescue operations. The United States sent a team of eight to Islamabad to provide technical assistance, said the Pakistani Army. Pakistan will consult with the team to determine what help is needed to expedite the rescue operation.
The American assistance comes at a tense time between the two countries and could help improve relations after American airstrikes in November that accidentally killed 24 Pakistani soldiers at two posts along the Afghan border.
Also see: Hit or Mis(take) in Pakistan
No discipline in deadly strike, US says
Nothing like blaming the victim.
Pakistan retaliated by closing its border crossings to supplies meant for NATO troops in Afghanistan. The Pakistani Parliament is debating a new framework for relations with the United States that Washington hopes will lead to the reopening of the supply line. But that outcome is uncertain given the level of anti-American sentiment in the country.
They got their wish already.
The avalanche in Siachen, which is on the northern tip of the divided Kashmir region claimed by India and Pakistan, highlighted the risks of deploying troops to one of the most inhospitable places on earth.
The thousands of soldiers from both nations stationed there brave viciously cold temperatures, altitude sickness, high winds, and isolation for months at a time. Troops have been posted at elevations of up to 22,000 feet and have skirmished intermittently since 1984, though the area has been quiet since a cease-fire in 2003. The glacier is known as the world’s highest battlefield....
More soldiers have died from the weather than combat on the glacier, which was uninhabited before troops moved there.
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"Pakistan avalanche heaps loss on ‘futile’ face-off" by Chris Brummitt | Associated Press, April 10, 2012
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — An avalanche that buried more than 120 soldiers in a Himalayan region close to India has put a spotlight on what critics say is one of the world’s most pointless military deployments: two poverty-wracked nations engaged in a costly standoff over an uninhabitable patch of mountain and ice.
Since Saturday morning, when the massive wall of snow engulfed a Pakistani military complex close to the Siachen Glacier, rescue teams have been unable to dig up any survivors. There is now very little hope that even a small number of people will come out alive.
A team of US military specialists was expected to arrive at the site Monday to assist in the rescue efforts, according to an American official.
That's almost a week! WTF?
The team flew in from Afghanistan after the Pakistani army asked for help, the official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media.
The US military helped Pakistan after the 2005 Kashmir earthquake and floods in 2010, ventures that Washington used to bolster efforts to strengthen its ties with Islamabad, vital in the fight against Al Qaeda. The current mission is far smaller and comes amid a near-breakdown in relations between the two countries.
Switzerland and Germany are also sending small teams of specialists to help, said the Pakistani army.
The missing soldiers are part of the Pakistani military deployment to the Siachen Glacier, which forms the northern part of the Kashmir region, disputed between Islamabad and India and the main source of tension between the nuclear-armed rivals, who have fought three wars since 1947.
The conflict over Siachen began in 1984, when India occupied the heights of the 49-mile long glacier, fearing Pakistan wanted to claim the territory. Islamabad also deployed its troops. A 2003 cease-fire largely ended skirmishes on the glacier, where troops have been deployed as high as 20,000 feet, but both armies remained camped out there.
Neither side releases information on troop numbers in the region, but they are believed to be in the hundreds or low thousands.
Of all the problems plaguing the two countries, Siachen is often described as one of the easiest to solve, but it is hostage to general mistrust and hard-liners on both sides who do not want to give up their claim on territory, however strategically insignificant.
“This absolutely futile, useless fiasco has been going on since 1984,’’ said Pakistan-India peace activist Tahira Abdullah. “It is a one-hour job to agree on a solution, but it is now an ego problem between the two armies. Both armies should pull back from the heights. Soldiers are dying and my heart bleeds for them, but it’s for nothing.’’
Temperatures as low as minus 76 degrees, vicious winds, and altitude sickness — the region is just east of the world’s second-highest peak, K-2 — have killed far more than the artillery fire. Casualty figures are not released by either military, but hundreds are believed to have died there.
The avalanche plowed into the headquarters at Gayari sector, which is at the glacier entrance and buried the complex under more than 70 feet of snow.
The military says at least 124 soldiers from the Sixth Northern Light Infantry Battalion and 11 civilian contractors at the headquarters have not been found.
The frontier in Siachen has never been demarcated. When the Line of Control that divides Kashmir was set by the two countries after a 1971 war, it did not extend to the northern glacier, considered uninhabitable.
On Sunday, President Asif Ali Zardari held talks with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in India, the first time the two leaders have met in three years. The Siachen issue was raised in the 40-minute meeting, said Indian Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai.
Yes, I see that Kashmir came up.
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Related:
"Pakistani troops say they feel West undervalues their war" March 11, 2012|By Kathy Gannon
KALPANI BASE, Pakistan - Pakistan has lost more than 3,000 soldiers in battles with Taliban since it deployed soldiers to its western border, more than all the foreign deaths in Afghanistan since 2001. Although it sees India to its east as its biggest military challenge, it regards its Afghan flank to the west as critical enough to warrant stationing 130,000 soldiers there.
The base called Kalpani is on the front line in the 10-year war against militant Islamists, a war that allies Pakistan with the United States and NATO in an uneasy, distrustful partnership. Pakistan feels scapegoated for the coalition’s failures in Afghanistan. At the same time it is accused of playing a double game, fighting the militants it chooses to fight while giving others haven and logistical support for their actions in Afghanistan.
Last month the army took an unprecedented step, allowing an Associated Press writer and photographer to follow Pakistani troops on their front-line rounds for a glimpse inside its fight against militants.
Ghosts of the British Empire linger over this wild stretch of northern Pakistan. The unit at Kalpani base comprises Lancers, a term dating back to the British dominion over South Asia, which ended with partition into India and Pakistan in 1947. The Lancers’ local headquarters is in a 19th-century colonial mansion.
High above the mansion, reachable by a road that ends in snow drifts and then by walking for three hours, is Kalpani, its 46 men housed in bunkers facing Kunar Province in Afghanistan. The cement huts seem to perch precariously on the mountainside....
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Then the coverage was buried.
More:
Pakistan may turn to Interpol for help in arresting Musharraf
Well, what is Interpol waiting for? They know where he is!
Suicide blast in Pakistan kills 23 Shi'ites
16 pulled from bus in Pakistan, shot dead
Gunmen kill six Shi'ites in Pakistan
Even though "most Sunnis and Shi’ites live together peacefully."
Car bomb kills 12 at Pakistan bus depot
70 die in violence in Pakistani border area
Six killed in two attacks in Pakistan
Don't see much about Baluchistan in my paper.
Most killed by US drones are militants, study finds
Drones a sticking point for US, Pakistan
Pakistan denounces drones
Pakistan demands end to US drone strikes
So do I. I'm sooooo, sooooo sick of mass-murdering slaughter based on lies.
Pakistan looks to improve border security
Abductions fund Pakistan Taliban
They still haven't found Warren Weinstein, 'eh?
Pakistan tells Taliban to join peace talks
Pakistan fostering talks with Taliban
Pakistan says it is unable to bring Taliban to peace talks
Related: Peace Talk Post
Noted Pakistani acid victim commits suicide
Man's dead shark draws crowd, police
US offers $10m for Pakistani militant
Pakistan Demolishes Compound Where US Forces Surprised, Killed Bin Laden
Bin Laden wives charged with illegally entering Pakistan
Bin Laden wife offers account of their years spent in hiding
Bin Laden's 3 widows get short sentences
Pakistan to deport bin Laden family
Related: Bin Laden Stories Show AmeriKan Media Not to be Believed
Many of the above articles I have linked I read; many others I did not, for the reason you see directly above.
I mean, if they are going to continue to toss out and run with a monstrous deception then how can they be believed regarding anything?
Update:
"Taliban attacks prison, 380 escape; 20 dangerous insurgents freed in Pakistani raid" by Ishtiaq Mahsud | Associated Press, April 16, 2012
DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan - Taliban militants armed with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades battled their way into a prison in northwest Pakistan on Sunday, freeing 380 prisoners, including at least 20 described by police as very dangerous insurgents, authorities and the militants said.
The raid by more than 100 fighters was a dramatic display of the strength of the insurgency gripping the nuclear-armed country.
This is starting to reek like an agenda-pushing intelligence agency hit.
Now that last part I believe. Thousands are dead.
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