Valley

The Monday tragedy that left 17 soldiers dead and 18 critically wounded at Khilanmarg, about 5 km from Gulmarg, could have been averted had the Army and officials at the Army

Shujaat Bukhari

JAMMU: Seventeen Army men, including an officer, were killed in avalanches near Gulmarg early on Monday.

Out of the 400 men undergoing training at a high altitude warfare camp in Khilanmarg area, 80 were trapped and most of them rescued, a defence spokesman told The?Hindu.

SEVENTEEN soldiers were killed and another 17 critically injured when an avalanche of snow smashed into a High Altitude Warfare School (HAWS) in Gulmarg on Monday. Army spokesman Colonel Vineet Sood said more than 80 soldiers were rescued. The rescue operation was called off after everyone was accounted for.

An International Symposium on Snow and Avalanches (ISSA-2009), jointly organised by the Snow and Avalanche Study Establishment (SASE) and International Glaciological Society (IGS), Cambridge, UK, which will begin from April 6 to 10 at the Siachen Auditorium, SASE complex, about 4 km from here.

Dehradun: One tourist was killed and nine others, including five foreigners, were injured when an avalanche from the Gomukh Glacier

High in the Himalayas, above this peaceful valley where farmers till a patchwork of emerald-green fields, an icy lake fed by melting glaciers waits to become a "tsunami from the sky.' The lake is swollen dangerously past normal levels, thanks to the global warming that is causing the glaciers to retreat at record speed. But no one knows when the tipping point will come and the lake can take no more, bursting its banks and sending torrents of water crashing into the valley below.

An Army jawan was killed in an avalanche in Kupwara district of Jammu and Kashmir, official sources said here on Tuesday. Rifleman Bhupinder Singh of Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry was killed when he was swept away by an avalanche at Badi Baer in Tangdhar sector on Monday evening, the sources said. With this, the death toll in avalanches in Jammu and Kashmir this winter has reached 41, including 12 Army jawans.

An ex gratia of Rs 7 lakh was distributed among the next of kin of seven persons who died of avalanches triggered due to heavy snowfall in Anantnag district. The legal heirs of six persons from Palhalan in the Kapran area and one person of Gulab Bagh, Dooru, who died due to snow avalanches were paid Rs 1 lakh each at Anantnag yesterday. The cheques were disbursed to the kith and kin at the district headquarters, District Development Commissioner, G.A. Peer said. The disbursement of the relief coincided with the visit of UPA chairperson and Congress president, Sonia Gandhi to review the situation arisen due to the heavy snowfall in the region earlier this month. Gandhi accompanied by the union Home Minister visited snow-affected areas of Doda and Kishtwar districts yesterday and reviewed the situation in Kashmir division with senior officers here. Her planned aerial survey of the affected areas in South Kashmir districts of Anantnag and Kulgam had been delayed due to bad weather conditions in the area. She, however, reviewed the situation accompanied by the Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil at the airport before returning to New Delhi this evening. Sonia Gandhi arrived at the technical airport here where she was received by Union Minister for Water Resources and President JKPCC, Prof Saif-ud-Din Soz, Chief Secretary B. R. Kundal, Divisional Commissioner, Kashmir, Mehboob Iqbal and other senior civil and police officers. She was accompanied by Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, Joint Secretary, Home Affairs and other dignitaries. The DC gave presentation listing the detail of damage caused to infrastructure in power, roads and buildings and public health and engineering sectors due to the snowfall. She was informed that the state needed huge financial support for procuring new snow-cutter machines to be able to promptly respond to such exigencies in future. It was revealed that as of now the mechanical engineering department had only four snow cutters and 38 snow-clearance machines. The state might also need additional resources to manage the floods, which were imminent when the snow melts, for providing potable drinking water to the people living in inaccessible areas.