The highest combat zone on
planet earth, Siachen glacier is one place where fewer soldiers have died on
the line duty due to enemy fire than because of the harsh weather conditions.
For Indian forces deployed
in Siachen, it is less of a challenge to watch out for the frail Pakistani
forces but to just stay atop this 76 kilometers long glacier at 5, 400 meters
altitude (nearly twice the altitude of Ladakh and Kargil) in itself means you
have to defy all of your physical, mental and spiritual limits.
In
Siachen, you are at the risk of getting a deadly frostbite if your bare skin
touches steel (gun trigger, for example) for just over fifteen seconds.
Merely touching the trigger or gun barrel with
bare hands can be a mistake big enough to result in loss of toes or fingers.
Mountain climbers
climb when the weather is at its best; soldiers serve in these treacherous
terrains all year round.
Minus 60 degrees temperature and over 5,000
meters altitude; low atmospheric pressure and oxygen, well, you keep asking for
more of it. There’s 10% of the amount of oxygen available in Siachen than it is
in plains.
It’s the weather of the kind that us mortals
aren’t simply designed to bear. Not for long and not without the great risk of
losing eyes, hands or legs. But these men – they do it, every day.
Because every inch of this land belongs to
India and they shall not cede it to some faggot neighbors who no longer have a
higher ground in Siachen.
The human body just
cannot acclimatize over 5,400 meters
When you stay at that altitude for long, you
lose your weight, don’t feel like eating, sleep disorders come around in no
time and memory less – that’s a common occurrence. Put simply, the body begins
to deteriorate. That’s what happens at Siachen.
Speech blurring is as
obvious as toothpaste freezing in the tube
It’s fiercer than heaviest of gunfire any day.
But our soldiers have taken up the challenge nonetheless.
Snowstorms in Siachen
can last 3 weeks.
Winds here can cross the 100 mph limit in no
time. The temperature can drop well below minus 60 degrees.
Yearly snowfall in Siachen
can be well over 3 dozen feet
When snow storms come around, at least two to
three soldiers have to keep using shovels (in snow storm). Else, the military
post would become a history; in no time.
Fresh food – that’s
rare. Very rare. At Siachen, an orange or an apple can freeze to the hardness
of a cricket ball in no time.
Rations come out of tin cans.
Army pilots literally
push their helicopters well beyond their optimal performance, every day!
They drop supplies at forward posts located at
an altitude of more than 20 thousand feet.
Army pilots usually have less than a minute
for dropping off the supplies at forward posts.
In the last 30 years,
846 soldiers have sacrificed their lives at Siachen.
In case of
Siachen, deaths due
to extreme climate and beyond-imagination terrain conditions are treated as
battle causalities and rightly so.
In last three years
alone, 50 Indian soldiers have died in Siachen. These causalities as per the
information made available by Defense Minister in Lok Sabha, were due to the
very nature of the place our forces are serving. These soldiers sacrificed
their lives on the line of duty while combating the floods, avalanches and
floods in Siachen.
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