60 Hours, 200 Jawans and a Complex Rescue Operation

It was around 8 am on Friday, barely two hours after an avalanche hit the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) campsite near Mana village in Uttarakhand's Chamoli district, when an entire company of the Indian Army's IBEX Brigade from the Mana post, nearly 1.5 km away, was dispatched to the disaster-hit site.

- Amit Bathla

DEHRADUN:

As the blanket of snow thickened, the winds howled through the valley, visibility dropped to near zero, and oxygen levels thinned at an elevation of approximately 3,200 meters, the soldiers from the elite force trained in high-altitude operations pressed on, digging through deep snow to search and rescue the construction workers trapped inside eight metal containers buried in snow.

"Within 45 minutes of receiving the information, the entire IBEX Brigade from Mana assembled and began the rescue operation at 8 am. The weather was extremely harsh," Lt Col Manish Srivastava, defence public relations officer, Dehradun, said.

Armed with rescue equipment and medical supplies, a team of 174 personnel from the IBEX Brigade, including doctors and engineers, were the first responders to the avalanche disaster. Soon, a team of eight personnel from ITBP joined them.