135 missing from Pakistani base after avalanche

Rescue workers used bulldozers yesterday to dig through huge banks of snow following a massive avalanche, which engulfed a military complex and buried at least 135 people close to the Indian border.

More than 24 hours after the disaster at the entrance to the Siachen Glacier, no bodies have been recovered.

The army said 240 troops and civilians worked at the scene yesterday with the aid of sniffer dogs and heavy machinery. They struggled to dig through 25 metres of snow, boulders, mud and slush that buried the rear headquarters building in the Gayari sector.

Pakistani army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani visited the site yesterday to supervise rescue operations. At least 124 soldiers from the 6 Northern Light Infantry Battalion and 11 civilian contractors are missing.

The accident in Siachen, on the northern tip of the divided Kashmir region claimed by both 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 skirmished intermittently since 1984, though a ceasefire began 2003. The glacier is the world’s highest battlefield.

The headquarters in Gayari, situated at around 4,572 meters (15,000 feet).

More soldiers have died from the weather than combat on the glacier, which was uninhabited before troops moved there.