2 Indian aircraft violating Pakistani airspace shot down; pilot captured

 

GIYARI SECTOR

At least 100 Pakistani soldiers were buried alive in a remote area in the Himalayas when an avalanche crushed their camp, the military said on Saturday.

 

The incident took place in the Siachen area in the north of Pakistan. Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said that rescue work was ongoing. “More than 100 soldiers of Northern Light Infantry, including a colonel were trapped when the avalanche hit a military camp,” he said. “The rescue mission is continuing and rescuers are trying to recover the soldiers.”

 

The avalanche struck overnight, local media said.

 

State-run Pakistan Television said the incident occurred in the Giyari area of Siachen, where the Pakistan Army has a base.

 

Avalanches and landslides frequently block roads and leave communities isolated in the mountains of Pakistan, neighboring Afghanistan and in Kashmir, the Himalayan territory divided between rivals India and Pakistan. The Kashmir region—of which Siachen is a part—is divided between Pakistan and India and is claimed by both in full.

 

Kashmir has caused two of the three wars between the neighbors since their independence in 1947 from Britain.

 

Both Pakistan and India have deployed thousands of soldiers in the disputed Himalayan territory of Kashmir but harsh weather in Siachen is said to have claimed many more lives than actual fighting.

 

ISLAMABAD

 Islamabad (help·info) (Urdu: اسلام آباد; Islām ābād, lit. Abode of Islam) is the capital of Pakistan and the tenth largest city in the country. The population of the city has increased from 100,000 in 1951 to 1.21 million in 2009. The Rawalpindi/Islamabad Metropolitan Area is the third largest in Pakistan with a population of over 4.5 million inhabitants.

Islamabad is located in the Pothohar Plateau in the north of the country, within the Islamabad Capital Territory. The region has historically been a part of the crossroads of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa with Margalla pass acting as the gateway between the two regions. The city was built during the 1960s to replace Karachi as Pakistan's capital.

Mazar-e-Quaid

Mazar-e-Quaid (Urdu: مزار قائد) or the National Mausoleum refers to the tomb of the founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah. It is an iconic symbol of Karachi throughout the world. The mausoleum (Urdu/Persian/Arabic: mazār), completed in the 1960s, is situated at the heart of the city.

Faisal Mosque

The Faisal Mosque is the largest mosque in Pakistan and is located in the national capital city of Islamabad.

Faisal Mosque is conceived as the National Mosque of Pakistan. It is the largest mosque in South Asia and one of the largest mosques in the world.

The Faisal Mosque is named after the late King Faisal bin Abdul-Aziz of Saudi Arabia, who supported and financed the project.

Darya e Sindh or Sindh river

Longest River Of Pakistan is the Indus river which is about 1976 miles (3180 km) long. Originating in the Tibetan plateau in the vicinity of Lake Mansarovar in Tibet Autonomous Region, the river runs a course through the Ladakh district of Jammu and Kashmir and then enters Northern Areas (Gilgit-Baltistan), flowing through the North in a southerly direction along the entire length of the country, to merge into the Arabian Sea near port city of Karachi in Sindh. It is the major source of irrigation for the fertile agricultural lands of Pakistan. It is also called “Darya-e-Sindh” in Pakistan.  The river’s estimated annual flow stands at around 207 cubic kilometers, making it the twenty-first largest river in the world in terms of annual flow.

FOREST IN PAKISTAN

The forests of Pakistan reflect great physiographic, climatic and edaphic contrasts in the country. Pakistan is an oblong stretch of land between the Arabian sea and Karakoram mountains, lying diagonally between 24° N and 37° N latitudes and 61° E and 75° E longitudes, and covering an area of 87.98 million hectares. Topographically, the country has a continuous massive mountainous tract in the north, the west and south-west and a large fertile plain, the Indus plain. The northern mountain system, comprising the Karakoram, the great Himalayas, and the Hindu-Kush, has enormous mass of snow and glaciers and 100 peaks of over 5,400 m. in elevation. K-2 (8,563 m.) is the second highest peak in the world. The mountain system occupies one third of this part of the country. The western mountain ranges, not so high as in the north, comprise the Sufed Koh and the Sulaiman while the south-western ranges forming a high, dry and cold Balochistan plateau. Characteristically, the mountain slopes are steep, even precipitous, making fragile watershed areas and associated forest vegetation extremely important from hydrological point of view. The valleys are narrow. The mountains are continuously undergoing natural process of erosion. The nature of climate with high intensity rainfall in summer and of soil in the northern regions render these mountains prone to landslides.