Avalanche traps about 150 Pakistani soldiers

[Safriz]

No, it was just luck.

The Indian side tries to rely less on luck by extensively studying the environment. DRDO is also developing/has developed seeds that can be used to locally cultivate vegetables in places like Siachen as transportation of food is one of the major costs involved.

Glaciers are clumsy and happily sit on their place for eons...They don't crash down the mountain like this..Unless there is a major earthquake or Volcanic eruption...There was a mile long Buffer zone between the camp and the Glacier in addition to the river..Its highly unlikely that a Glacier just breaks off the face of a mountain comes hurtling down hill..This was unthinkable and even the mighty DRDO couldn't have predicted this.

 

[Rafi]

Soldiering is dangerous, and inevitably soldiers die. But ours have died in the defense of the mother, our motherland.

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.” Oscar Wilde

“Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.”
Shakespeare

“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
Mark Twain

“You don't get to choose how you're going to die. Or when. You can only decide how you're going to live. Now.”
Joan Baez

For the Martyrs.

 

[darkinsky]

No, it was just luck.

The Indian side tries to rely less on luck by extensively studying the environment. DRDO is also developing/has developed seeds that can be used to locally cultivate vegetables in places like Siachen as transportation of food is one of the major costs involved.

can you provide any links, also can you safely say that this process in less costly and it doesnt need more time as compared to transportation??

 

[Windjammer]

No, it was just luck.

The Indian side tries to rely less on luck by extensively studying the environment. DRDO is also developing/has developed seeds that can be used to locally cultivate vegetables in places like Siachen as transportation of food is one of the major costs involved.

Must be a very recent acquisition by India then since some twenty odd Indian soldiers were swept away by an avalanche just last month or so. !!

 

[anathema]

The Indian side tries to rely less on luck by extensively studying the environment.

Sorry i dont buy that .

There is no way any organization in the world can predict a natural calamity like Avalanche (unless ofcourse its being triggered). Most of the times its just a guess and then luck.

Indians and Pakistanis both are relying purely on 'Luck' (nothing else) when it comes to Siachen.

 

[CaptainJackSparrow]

Must be a very recent acquisition by India then since some twenty odd Indian soldiers were swept away by an avalanche just last month or so. !!

Couls you please share the source of that report?

 

[Patriot]

Must be a very recent acquisition by India then since some twenty odd Indian soldiers were swept away by an avalanche just last month or so. !!

These guys are pathetic.Always trying to score points.Few weeks ago some Indian Member ( Hiding in UK flags - i think ashamed of tricolor) had the audacity to say that Indian Air Force has the best training facility in Asia (Yeah that's why they end up crashing jets every month).

 

[Ark-Angel]

Should we have taken American help? As some one said... DEATH before DISGRACE"....Have we forgotten what Americans did to our soldiers few months ago in Salala? They deliberately and ruthlessly killed our soldiers in cold...and now we are taking their help? And its not even a matter of saving lives, now, unfortunately... Its only to recover dead bodies...bcoz all of them must have died uptil now, sadly.. If we could save lives, then maybe still we would have considered taking America's help...but now thts not the case....So why take their ehsaan? We could take help from other friendly countries, may be China for example? Isnt it a shame taking help from the country who have no respect for our poor soldiers? And US will most probably use it also as a bargaining tool for Nato supplies, while we gain nothing, bcoz the brave soldiers must have died..sadly.. Its an insult to those soldiers, who died, defending Pak...Army must have rejected American help...I was disappointed when I came to know, tht we have accepted America's help

There's a difference b/w India and USA!

 

[AZADPAKISTAN2009]

Camp was created exactly in the path of the flow , which is not very logical but perhaps there were not enough decent spots to build a camp

 

[Ark-Angel]

Well obviously you have not served in the armed forces? We have saved numerous lives of injured Iraqi soldiers when we pushed them out of Kuwait and still gave them first aid. No one is at war. Only fanboys here are at war.

My father has and I've seen the results of war myself!

 

[Windjammer]

Couls you please share the source of that report?

We are going off-topic here, none the less, here is the link.

daily sun | Asia | Avalanches kill 12 soldiers in Kashmir

 

[CaptainJackSparrow]

We are going off-topic here, none the less, here is the link.

daily sun | Asia | Avalanches kill 12 soldiers in Kashmir

That is not in Siachen. If you want to delve into the Generic category of avalanches, then that is a different matter.

I though you were talking of Siachen. May be I misunderstood.

 

[Safriz]

Assuming that the barrack/Hit in the red circle is 7 feet high from roof edge to bottom...We can see that 7 huts fit on the vertical face of the glacier on the sides and 10 huts fit in the middle.
This makes the Glacier 50 feet or 15 meters high on the sides and 70 feet or 21 meters high in the middle..Or a mean height of 18 meters.

same picture without red lines.

Now this isnt a high resolution picture but presumably it was taken just after the disaster,and it clearly shows the Grey area just ahead of the Pure white snow at the top..Thats the missing area of the Glacier..Since the Edge of the Glacier was about 1.2 kilometers from the Camp.We can say that the Collapsed area of the Glacier is about 900 meter long and about Half as wide.

Now to find the area of the Slab of Glacier that crashed on the camp.

Its LXBXD?

Thats 900m X 450m X 18m

Thats a volume of 7290,000 cubic meters.

Average Density of Ice + Snow is 0.9 for ice, 0.7 for compacted snow 0.5 for non compacted snow..Mean density is 0.7 tons per cubic meter?

Total weight of the Glacier that crashed that day will be.

7290,000 X 0.7 Equals 5103,000 tons

Thats 5.1 million tons of Glacier sliding down the mountain...
Lets take out 50% margin of error in the calculation??..Even then its more than 2.5 Million tons of ice that hit our Soldiers on that unfortunate day.....
If you look at the top of the second picture you will see a straight line dividing the white snow and the missing Grey area,and that indicated the the whole slab slid off in one go.

 

[CENTCOM]

The proud nation of Pakistan is facing a tough task in trying to rescue more than100 soldiers trapped in the avalanche. At the request of the Government of Pakistan, we have deployed an eight-man U.S. military alpine search and rescue team from Kabul to Pakistan. They arrived last night. The team is currently in Islamabad discussing with the Pakistani military how their skills can best be utilized in the search and rescue effort. [This can be subject to update, obviously.] We stand by to assist Pakistan further in any way should Pakistan request additional assistance. Our thoughts and prayers are with the colleagues, families, and loved ones of the missing men and with the people of Pakistan during this crisis. We remain hopeful that the soldiers will be found safe and alive.

MAJ Nevers,
DET, United States Central Command
U.S. Central Command

 

[VCheng]

The time window is closing down fast now I fear for a favorable outcome. We all should be braced for bad news.