Disaster Reignites Debate Over Battle at Earth’s Ceiling

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — In the snowy wastes of Siachen, where Pakistani and Indian soldiers face off in a high-altitude battle zone ringed by Himalayan peaks, the fight is against the mountain, not the man.

In outposts up to 22,000 feet above sea level, the temperature can plunge to 58 below, and linger there for months. Patrolling soldiers tumble into yawning crevasses. Frostbite chews through unprotected flesh. Blizzards blow, weapons seize up and even simple body functions become intolerable.

Some soldiers go crazy and end up “staring into space,” as one veteran put it, unhinged by the dazzling whiteness of rock, sun and snow.

Then there are the avalanches.

The latest occurred on April 7, when a giant wall of snow crashed down on the Pakistani side of the battlefield, swamping the battalion headquarters of 6 Northern Light Infantry, where 124 Pakistani soldiers and 14 civilians were stationed. The avalanche buried a cluster of buildings in 80 feet of snow; a week later, rescuers have yet to pull out a single person, dead or alive.

The battalion’s fate drew an anguished reaction across Pakistan and swung a spotlight onto an often-forgotten corner of the 65-year-old conflict over Kashmir, the disputed mountain territory that lies at the emotional heart of the conflict with India. And it reinvigorated an incendiary question: Is Siachen, a glacier on Kashmir’s northern edge, worth fighting over?

“It is time for both countries to step back from this madness,” said Mehmood Shah, a retired army brigadier who was once involved in talks to end the standoff. “Every day, people die in this conflict. Going on is in nobody’s interest.”

Many critics echoed that view, describing the conflict as a pointless and sinfully expensive battle for a piece of Himalayan real estate that, while stunningly beautiful, is unfit for human habitation. About 3,000 Pakistani soldiers have died at Siachen since 1984, of whom about 90 percent perished from weather-related causes, said the Pakistani military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas.

Military analysts estimate the deployment costs Pakistan $5 million a month; Indian costs are higher still because of higher troop numbers and because supplies are transported by helicopter.

Still, many military strategists and security hawks in both countries insist the fight must go on. In any peace negotiation with Pakistan, wrote Vikram Sood, a former chief of Indian intelligence, Siachen should be the “last issue on the table, not the first.”

Pakistani military photographs of the rescue operation, released in recent days, paint a dispiriting picture of the scene: white-suited rescuers, aided by sniffer dogs, digging amid driving snow; bulldozers tapping into an immense snowdrift. A three-person American military rescue team has arrived to help, and was due to travel to Siachen; German and Swiss experts are already on site.

The effort is now focused on burrowing a 130-foot tunnel toward the troop barracks, where soldiers were sleeping when the avalanche hit. Ominously, the army has already released pictures of those inside: mostly soldiers in their 20s, wearing green berets and striped neck-scarves. Few Pakistanis dare hope any will emerge alive; as many see it, the mountain has won yet again.

“Damn you, Siachen,” Kamran Shafi, a former army officer and a prominent columnist, wrote Friday in The Express Tribune, echoing a widely shared sentiment.

While India and Pakistan have fought over Kashmir since 1947, the battle for Siachen erupted in April 1984, when Indian commandos captured the peaks overlooking the 49-mile Siachen Glacier, the world’s second-longest outside a polar region.

The dispute stemmed from a mix of bad politics and worse cartography: a 1972 agreement between Pakistan and India that demarcated the Line of Control was ambiguously worded, allowing both countries to claim the glacier. Fighting raged for almost two decades until 2003, when Pakistan and India agreed to a cease-fire that, despite occasional flare-ups, has largely held. Still, up to 8,000 soldiers from both sides, mostly Indians, remain stationed in the battle zone, according to unofficial estimates, facing each other across an expanse of rock and snow.

For those who have served in Siachen, it is an unforgettable experience.