Siachen Glacier

The Siachen Glacier or Siachen (read: Sia -chen ) is a 74 km long glacier in a disputed territory between India and Pakistan. It lies at an altitude of up to 6,400 meters above sea level, according to the Fedchenko Glacier in the Pamirs in Tajikistan 's second longest glaciers outside the polar regions. The name comes from Sia, the wild rose. Siachen means valley of the wild roses.

Geography

The glacier is located in the southeastern part of the Karakorum Mountains on the northern edge of central Kashmir. Its accumulation area is located at Indira Col, a saddle east of the Sia Kangri, which allows a transition to Urdok Glacier in Chinese controlled Shaksgam Valley. From there, the Siachen flows in a southeasterly direction and divides the Karakoram in the lower mountains of the Saltoro Mountains on the southwest side and the Siachen Muztagh on the north east side of the glacier. The Siachen drained via the Nubra - Shyok river to and finally over the Indus to the Indian Ocean.

Political conflict over the ownership

From the state political affiliation ago he is part of the disputed between India and Pakistan, historically formerly independent Kashmir. The boundary line between the two parts of the country, through the heart of the glacier, the boundary line is not fixed. India insists therefore on a definitional agreement on the border issue of a possible troop withdrawal. Since the end of May 2005, there is renewed negotiations between senior officials from both conflict zones in the city of Rawalpindi, to come to a peaceful solution.

According to information from the German daily Die Welt, the Indian flag is hoisted on the summit of Bana Saltoro Mountains for twenty years. Since then, the stationing of troops in India would cost an estimated two million U.S. dollars a month. Pakistan apparently demanded the withdrawal of both armies to those positions they had occupied over twenty years ago, before the Indian army occupied the greater part of the glacier.

Through a heavy avalanche in the region - an avalanche buried on 7 April 2012, a Pakistani camp and spilled about 100 soldiers - the international attention was focused on this highest battleground in the world.

Ascents and initiatives

On their expedition to the Karakorum in the years 1911 and 1912, the first to reach from the West, the American explorers and mountaineers' Fanny Bullock Workman pair and her husband William Hunter Workman the glacier. In 1930, the Italian geologist Giotto Dainelli visited the Siachen and spent the summer on the meadow at the confluence, the confluence of Terram Very and Siachen. He completed the exploration and mapping of the Siachen. After him came in the summer of 1978, the film crew from Germany ( Wolfgang Kohl, Jaroslav Poncar and Volker Stallbohm ) over the Bilafond La for Siachen. Last before the Siachen conflict in 1980 was an American team, led by Galen Rowell, cross over to the Karakoram Skitraverse the glacier. 1996 was the first civilian team to go back over the Siachen Glacier. It was actually a group led by Harish Kapadia, who was on his way to the Terong Valley.

Following an initiative of the Peace Parks, both armies should withdraw to create from the glacier and the area a transboundary and environmental Transboundary Peace Park.

Documentary

The documentary Siachen - A War for Ice ' ( Siachen - Una guerra per il ghiaccio ) was completed by the two Swiss climbers and filmmakers Fulvio Mariani and Mario Casella in 2005.

In the summer of 1978, by Jaroslav Poncar and Wolfgang Kohl documentary "The wilderness of ice of the Eastern Karakoram - expedition to the largest glacier " rotated. It was made on behalf of the WDR in Cologne and sent in 1979.

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