16 Army men killed, 17 hurt in avalanche in Kashmir

As many as 16 soldiers of the Indian Army, including an officer, were killed today by an avalanche that struck their training camp at Khilanmarg, near the ski resort of Gulmarg in north-west Kashmir, official sources said.

The sources identified the officer killed as Lt Prateek. The injured have been taken to the base hospital at Srinagar.

They said 70 people were caught in the avalanche that smashed the camp as they were undergoing training for winter warfare on the icy slopes in the area. "Sixteen people were killed and the rest were rescued," they said.

The sources said the rescue operations were called off after all the missing men were accounted for by this evening. The soldiers were from the Army's High Altitude Warfare School (HAWS) at Gulmarg and were part of a group of about 350 men selected to undergo the advanced course.

The group had set out this morning from Gulmarg and reached Khilanmarg after covering eight km uphill to set up the training camp when they were hit by the avalanche.

Gulmarg and many other parts of Kashmir have received heavy snowfall in the past two days.

NNN