ORDEAL ON GLACIER

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19127, 23 September 1936, Page 15

ORDEAL ON GLACIER

SURVEYORS' ESCAPE

CRAWL THROUGH SNOW

GRASS THEIR ONLY FOOD

SIMLA, Aug. 8.

A surveyor and four assistants, who were mapping! the source of a Himalayan glacier north of the sacred Badrinath peaks, had a remarkable escape from death when they were caught by storms at 18.000 ft.

Their struggle for life is (.old in d mr sage from Mussooric.

The surveyor, Fazl Elahie, sent all the servants to bring fuel nnd rations from fiaumnkh. site of a famous ice-cave on the Gangotri glacier, 10 miles below.

Immediately after the coolies left the monsoon broke. Eight feet of snow fell on the surveyor's camp, and no one could reach it with the supplies that it needed.

After two or three days Fazl Elahie and his party decided to abandon camp in the hope of covering the 10 miles to Gaumukh. On the first day they crawled two miles through snow in which they sometimes sank up to their necks. They spent the night huddled together without food.

Next day they struggled on for three more miles, crossing a maze of glacial ridges, cliffs and chasms. They spent the night, utterly worn out, in a valley where the. ground was smoother and the snow only 4ft. deep. ENCOURAGED 11 IS MEN On the third morning the surveyor's assistants seemed unable to move. Fazl Elahie tried to encourage them by making a start, but broke down after crawling 20 yards. 11 is example, bowever, was enough to set the others going, and each member of the party took turns at leading for 10 or 20 yards at a time. Thus they reached the main Gangotri glacier at noon, and found a trickle, of water which they were glad to drink instead of snow. "In their starved condition the wafer gave them worse pains. and they had to make a long halt. They had now three miles to go to Gaumukh. and another mile to their ration dump. They threw away their last blankets, and stumbled on until they arrived at u bank where the snow was only a few inches deep. There they lay down for a time, eating the grass that peeped through the, snow. They bad resigned themselves to another night on the glacier, when they sawfigures approaching. In the reaction of relief they collapsed. When the rescuers found them the surveyor and one assistant were barely able to "reach camp on their own feet with two men supporting each of them. The other three had to be carried.