URI: Convoys of trucks race to and from the heavily-fortified frontline dividing Kashmir as Indian soldiers frantically try to rebuild bunkers where dozens of their comrades were buried alive.

A battery of howitzers pulls out overnight from forward positions as soldiers used their bare hands to repair foxholes, garrison walls and outposts heavily damaged by Saturday’s huge earthquake.

“They have been brought out because the gun emplacements may have been weakened,” an artillery officer explained.

The earthquake took a terrible toll on the Himalayan region of Kashmir, which is claimed by both India and Pakistan and divided by a heavily-militarised Line of Control (LoC).

The epicentre was in the Pakistani sector where as many as 40,000 people died including 200 border troops who perished in their bunkers.

The temblor also killed at least 1,300 people and injured 5,000 in the Indian-held zone of Kashmir, giving India’s border fortifications their worst battering in decades.

India acknowledges the death of 39 soldiers and injuries to 105 more in collapsing bunkers. A dozen paramilitary troops also died in the quake.

Tens of thousands of soldiers are massed on snow-blown ridges, icy cliffs and glaciers along the 700-kilometres of the world’s highest battlefield.

The Line of Control meanders along uninhabited ridges, bisects villages and ends at the Siachen glacier where avalanches, altitude sickness and sub-zero temperatures have killed more soldiers than actual combat.

Helicopters have been buzzing over Indian bunkers at 21,000 feet on Siachen where troops command peaks overlooking an icy wasteland.

“Siachen so far looks OK ... most of the damages seems to have occurred elsewhere,” an Indian Airforce helicopter pilot said.

The Indian military acknowledged its losses from the killer quake.

“We have taken a hit at the LoC,” said Indian army spokesman Colonel S.K. Gautam. “But we were immediately back on our feet.”

As well as dealing with its own losses, the army has led relief efforts for tens of thousands of homeless people.

“Look at the (military) hospitals which are catering to both civilians and injured soldiers including (child) deliveries,” he said, adding that damaged bunkers were nonetheless being repaired.

Neither India nor Pakistan has offered details of the number of bunkers wiped around the LoC over which 100,000 troops face off despite an ongoing peace process which has reduced tensions.

After Siachen, Indian Kashmir’s highest bunker was aptly named “Eagle Post” in the northern frontier district of Tangdar, just north of Uri.

But the temblor razed it within seconds, burying 12 soldiers.

“It is very sad what has happened but our boys are giving first priority to civilians,” said Lieutenant Colonel V.K. Batra. The bodies and weapons remained buried under debris at Eagle Post on Tuesday.

“When it hit I first thought; ‘Oh! sh.., they (Pakistan) are shelling us again’ but there was no smoke and then we were buried,” a wounded corporal, who declined to reveal his name, said at a military hospital.

A border ceasefire enforced by the two estranged South Asian neighbours in November 2003 is holding at the LoC after decades of major artillery clashes, rocket attacks and infantry duels.

Colonel Hemant Juneja of the 15 Army Corps said Indian forces were still on the highest alert to prevent infiltration by guerillas into the Indian-held zone of Kashmir despite the earthquake.

In a rare sign of cooperation, Indian and Pakistani military officials at the weekend discussed the possibility of joint relief and rescue measures, using a hotline that is generally reserved to defuse tension.

—AFP