On April the 7th, 2012, an avalanche, occurring in the disputed Siachen region of Indo-Pakistan, took 138 lives along with it. The casualties included soldiers and civilian employees alike of the Northern Light Battalion at the Gayatri Military Base, Ghanche, Pakistan. The avalanche covered an unusually long distance and there was a huge buffer zone between the army base. The slab avalanche had also, much to the surprise, jumped over the river and filled the valley, destroying an ice dam on its way. Not much of the tongue of the glacier is left. Rescue teams arrived within hours and started digging, with locals joining in to lend a helping hand. All that remain are boulders of ice. Two tonnes of ice crashed down the glacier in one go. The weight that tumbled down onto the army camp was also enormous, about the weight of 20 Nimitz class super carriers.
|