Chinmaya IAS Academy – Current Affairs Chinmaya IAS Academy – Current Affairs
Related Articles
Victims include five policemen; three others were rescued from under several feet of snow
Seven people were found dead at the end of an over 18-hour-long operation on Friday to save 10 people who were trapped under several feet of snow when a major avalanche hit an installation near the Jawahar Tunnel in south Kashmir’s Kulgam on Thursday evening. “Three trapped policemen were rescued from the avalanche site,” said District Development Commissioner, Anantnag, Muhammad Younis Malik.
Among the dead, five were policemen and two were alleged criminals.
Difficult operation
Ten persons, including eight policemen from three different wings of the J&K police, were inside a facility close to the northern portal of the 2.85 km-long tunnel towards the Valley when the avalanche hit the area. Kulgam district, where the tunnel is located, witnessed more than four feet snow on Thursday. An official said a joint rescue team of the State Disaster Response Force, the CRPF and the police had to enter the tunnel from the Jammu side towards the south on Thursday night. They used snow-cutters to drill a hole to reach the facility where the people were trapped on the other side of the tunnel in the north.
12-hour ordeal
“The first trapped policeman, Ghulam Nabi alias Gulzar Ahmed, was spotted alive on Friday morning, more than 12 hours after he was buried. He was quickly wrapped in warm blankets. Thereafter, two more policemen were found alive. Their condition is stable,” a senior official told The Hindu .
