In a major avalanche hit at the Siachen base camp of the Indian army, at least three jawans, including two Agniveers, lost their lives on Tuesday in the Ladakh sector.
At the time of filing the report, a rescue operation was still underway in Siachen, the “world’s highest battleground.” The rescue teams, armed with sophisticated equipment, have been camping in the area to look for any survivors.
According to official sources, the soldiers died as they remained trapped and could not be rescued in time. However, one army captain was safely rescued from the avalanche site. All three soldiers belonged to the Mahar regiment. They hailed from Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, and Jharkhand, sources said.
It is after a gap of more than three years that Indian Army jawans have lost their lives in an avalanche hit in the Siachen sector. In 2021, two soldiers were killed in Siachen after an avalanche struck sub-sector Haneef. Other soldiers and porters were rescued after a six-hour-long operation.
In November 2019, an avalanche killed four soldiers and two porters. It struck a patrolling party of eight soldiers near a post at a height of over 18,000 feet.
The highest number of fatalities due to an avalanche happened in 2022, when seven soldiers died in the Kameng sector of Arunachal Pradesh. Such was the intensity of the avalanche that the bodies of the Army personnel were found three days after they went missing.
On February 3, 2016, 10 soldiers were swept away by an avalanche in Northern Siachen glacier. Lance Naik Hanamanthappa Koppad of 19 Madras Regiment was extricated from his fibre-reinforced hut, buried under the 35 feet deep snow wall after a gap of 140 hours, but he could not survive.