Disaster strikes Gulmarg

SRINAGAR, February 8 (Agencies): Seventeen Indian soldiers were killed Monday in an avalanche that slammed into a group of 70 combat troops at a high-altitude warfare training camp in Kashmir, the army said Monday. Army spokesman Colonel Vineet Sood said the avalanche struck in the Khelenmarg mountains, close to the Kashmiri ski resort of Gulmarg, which has become a major draw for foreign, off-piste adventure skiers.
“We have 17 dead and 17 injured. No one is missing and rescue teams have returned to their bases,” Sood told AFP. The soldiers were from the Indian army’s High Altitude Warfare School, which houses around 450 troops. The main facility was not struck by the avalanche which swept away one of four sub-camps used for training operations. Heavy snowfall and high winds had hampered rescue operations and made communications difficult. The group had set out at 0800 hours on Monday from Gulmarg and reached Khilanmarg eight km uphill at a height of over 10,000 feet to set up a winter warfare training camp when the avalanche hit it.
The avalanche slammed into the army’s High Altitude Warfare School at about 11 a.m. and swept away the soldiers during a training session, said army spokesman Col. Vineet Sood. It was the worst avalanche in the area in many years, he said. Seventeen bodies were found and 53 troops were rescued about six hours after the speeding mass of snow and ice struck the center high on a Himalayan slope, senior police officer Qayoom Manhas informed. About 400 people, including 30 civilian workers, were at the training center, but the avalanche hit only one portion of the facility.
Gulmarg lies 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of Srinagar, the Kashmiri summer capital. First set up as a skiing school for a frontline infantry division in 1948, a year after India’s independence from Britain, the high altitude school is the army’s main mountain warfare training institute. Kashmir tourism official Ghulam Mohammed Dar, who participated in the rescue operation, said there were no local or foreign skiers in the avalanche area which was high above the popular slopes.
The High Altitude Warfare School is the Indian Army’s primary institute for such training and was set up more than 60 years ago initially to teach skiing to front-line infantry troops.
The site, at an altitude of 2,730 metres (9,000) feet, lies close to the de facto border dividing Kashmir between India and Pakistan. It had been snowing heavily in and around Gulmarg since Friday and Kashmir’s disaster management department had already issued warnings that heavy snowfall could trigger avalanches. The Gulmarg resort boasts thousands of metres of relatively unrestricted off-piste skiing. The number of domestic and foreign skiers has grown in recent years as militant violence in the region has eased off.