boardman
02-10-2010, 09:48 AM
From today's NY Times (there are pics in the article at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/11/world/asia/11avalanche.html?hp )
SALANG PASS, Afghanistan — High in the Hindu Kush mountain range, Basir Salangi, a senior provincial official, surveyed a vista of tragedy on Wednesday after avalanches buried hundreds of cars and severed Kabul’s heavily traveled link to northern Afghanistan. The death toll seemed far higher, he said, than initially feared.
Standing on an expanse of flattened snow, Mr. Salangi, the governor of the surrounding Parwan Province, gestured at a chaotic display of nature’s force. In the snowfield created by the avalanches lay cars, trucks and buses some buried, some half-buried, some holding bodies still to be counted.
Initial official accounts after the disaster on Tuesday said that at least 64 people were either known or feared dead. On Wednesday, that figure seemed optimistic.
Mr. Salangi said 150 bodies had been pulled from vehicles just below the summit of the pass, but a total nine miles of highway had been struck by the series of avalanches. Just in the section where he stood, he said, there were probably 50 more bodies to be excavated.
“We are going to find a lot more people under here,” Mr. Salangi told reporters as he stood at this section 11,000 feet above the ground, 1,000 feet below the summit of the Salang Pass. He paused as he scuffed with his foot, saying the ground below him seemed higher, probably cloaking another car. People began to dig.
In Kabul on Tuesday, officials said heavy winds and rain set off 17 avalanches that buried more than two miles of highway on the Salang Pass.
Rescuers using only shovels dug into the snow for survivors and bodies among the cars and buses, some of them overturned with only their wheels visible.
A police pickup truck with a machine gun parked on the roadway with 5 frozen bodies in the back. Afghan National Army helicopters took off every few minutes carrying corpses to lower ground.
Azizullah, a villager who, like many Afghans, uses only one name, said people in his village tried on Tuesday to reach a bus and found 14 people who had survived the avalanche because they had been trapped in a pocket of air.
But below them, 41 other passengers had perished, Mr. Azizullah said.
The calamity began to unfold Monday at the southern approaches of the Salang Pass, which connects Kabul with northern Afghanistan.
The interior minister, Mohammad Hanif Atmar said on Tuesday that a storm with heavy wind and rain blew in suddenly, setting off avalanches above the highway, which is cut into mountainsides and often runs high above a river gorge. Much of the snow tumbled down just south of a tunnel through the mountains.
The avalanches buried many cars and shoved others over the precipice deep into the gorge, said the defense minister, Rahim Wardak. Hundreds of other cars were trapped inside the nearly two-mile-long tunnel.
The Afghan National Army sent 500 troops to help the police with rescue efforts, while President Hamid Karzai ordered officials “to use all possible means to get the roads unblocked and rescue those trapped and stranded in the heavy snow,” according to a statement issued by his office.
NATO and Afghan National Army helicopters joined in the effort. About 2,500 people were recovered from their stranded cars, and 1.5 miles of roads were cleared Tuesday, leaving another mile still buried when work finished for the night.
Mr. Atmar issued an appeal for anyone with heavy equipment capable of moving snow to rent it to the government because the authorities did not have enough of their own.
He said the storm’s speed and ferocity had left no time to close the busy highway. “It happened all of a sudden, and it took us by surprise,” he said.
Many of the victims were taken to Parwan Hospital, in nearby Charikar, suffering from injuries and exposure. Among them were 11 children separated from their families by the avalanches, Mr. Atmar said.
Afghan news reports said people trapped inside the tunnel were calling for help on cellphones, saying they were freezing to death and choking on exhaust fumes.
The Salang Pass tunnel, built by the Soviets in the 1960s, has a long history of fatal disasters, including fires, explosions and mass asphyxiation in the narrow, heavily traveled and poorly ventilated tunnel.
Elsewhere in Afghanistan, four NATO soldiers were killed in separate episodes on Tuesday. An American was killed by a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan, and two soldiers of unidentified nationality were killed by another roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan, NATO’s International Security Assistance Force said in news releases. In addition, a French soldier was killed Tuesday in a firefight with insurgents in eastern Afghanistan, according to a statement from President Nicolas Sarkozy’s office. The soldier had been part of a French Army unit escorting an Afghan National Army convoy in Kapisa Province, the statement said.
SALANG PASS, Afghanistan — High in the Hindu Kush mountain range, Basir Salangi, a senior provincial official, surveyed a vista of tragedy on Wednesday after avalanches buried hundreds of cars and severed Kabul’s heavily traveled link to northern Afghanistan. The death toll seemed far higher, he said, than initially feared.
Standing on an expanse of flattened snow, Mr. Salangi, the governor of the surrounding Parwan Province, gestured at a chaotic display of nature’s force. In the snowfield created by the avalanches lay cars, trucks and buses some buried, some half-buried, some holding bodies still to be counted.
Initial official accounts after the disaster on Tuesday said that at least 64 people were either known or feared dead. On Wednesday, that figure seemed optimistic.
Mr. Salangi said 150 bodies had been pulled from vehicles just below the summit of the pass, but a total nine miles of highway had been struck by the series of avalanches. Just in the section where he stood, he said, there were probably 50 more bodies to be excavated.
“We are going to find a lot more people under here,” Mr. Salangi told reporters as he stood at this section 11,000 feet above the ground, 1,000 feet below the summit of the Salang Pass. He paused as he scuffed with his foot, saying the ground below him seemed higher, probably cloaking another car. People began to dig.
In Kabul on Tuesday, officials said heavy winds and rain set off 17 avalanches that buried more than two miles of highway on the Salang Pass.
Rescuers using only shovels dug into the snow for survivors and bodies among the cars and buses, some of them overturned with only their wheels visible.
A police pickup truck with a machine gun parked on the roadway with 5 frozen bodies in the back. Afghan National Army helicopters took off every few minutes carrying corpses to lower ground.
Azizullah, a villager who, like many Afghans, uses only one name, said people in his village tried on Tuesday to reach a bus and found 14 people who had survived the avalanche because they had been trapped in a pocket of air.
But below them, 41 other passengers had perished, Mr. Azizullah said.
The calamity began to unfold Monday at the southern approaches of the Salang Pass, which connects Kabul with northern Afghanistan.
The interior minister, Mohammad Hanif Atmar said on Tuesday that a storm with heavy wind and rain blew in suddenly, setting off avalanches above the highway, which is cut into mountainsides and often runs high above a river gorge. Much of the snow tumbled down just south of a tunnel through the mountains.
The avalanches buried many cars and shoved others over the precipice deep into the gorge, said the defense minister, Rahim Wardak. Hundreds of other cars were trapped inside the nearly two-mile-long tunnel.
The Afghan National Army sent 500 troops to help the police with rescue efforts, while President Hamid Karzai ordered officials “to use all possible means to get the roads unblocked and rescue those trapped and stranded in the heavy snow,” according to a statement issued by his office.
NATO and Afghan National Army helicopters joined in the effort. About 2,500 people were recovered from their stranded cars, and 1.5 miles of roads were cleared Tuesday, leaving another mile still buried when work finished for the night.
Mr. Atmar issued an appeal for anyone with heavy equipment capable of moving snow to rent it to the government because the authorities did not have enough of their own.
He said the storm’s speed and ferocity had left no time to close the busy highway. “It happened all of a sudden, and it took us by surprise,” he said.
Many of the victims were taken to Parwan Hospital, in nearby Charikar, suffering from injuries and exposure. Among them were 11 children separated from their families by the avalanches, Mr. Atmar said.
Afghan news reports said people trapped inside the tunnel were calling for help on cellphones, saying they were freezing to death and choking on exhaust fumes.
The Salang Pass tunnel, built by the Soviets in the 1960s, has a long history of fatal disasters, including fires, explosions and mass asphyxiation in the narrow, heavily traveled and poorly ventilated tunnel.
Elsewhere in Afghanistan, four NATO soldiers were killed in separate episodes on Tuesday. An American was killed by a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan, and two soldiers of unidentified nationality were killed by another roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan, NATO’s International Security Assistance Force said in news releases. In addition, a French soldier was killed Tuesday in a firefight with insurgents in eastern Afghanistan, according to a statement from President Nicolas Sarkozy’s office. The soldier had been part of a French Army unit escorting an Afghan National Army convoy in Kapisa Province, the statement said.