Indian army rescuers on Tuesday (February 8th) found the bodies of seven soldiers buried in an avalanche while patrolling a remote area along the disputed Himalayan border with China.
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The avalanche occurred on Sunday in an area at 4400 meters above sea level which had experienced heavy snowfall the previous days.
The seven soldiers belonged to troops deployed in the state of Arunachal Pradesh (northeast India).
Their bodies were found after two days of searching in harsh weather conditions and were taken to a nearby military medical center.
"
Unfortunately, despite everyone's best efforts, the deaths of the seven (missing) soldiers have been confirmed
," Indian Army spokesman Colonel Harsh Wardhan Pande said in a statement.
India and China have long disputed their long border and a blitzkrieg opposed them in 1962 in Arunachal Pradesh.
China then prevailed over India.
Beijing claims a good part of the territory of this Indian state which it considers to be part of southern Tibet.
Tension had risen in June 2020 in the Galwan Valley, located in India's Ladakh region, with a deadly clash in which more than 20 Indian soldiers were killed.
The Chinese army had reported four deaths in its ranks.
Since then, multiple negotiating sessions have failed to ease tensions and military reinforcements in men and equipment have been sent to both sides.
The Line
of Actual Control
», LAC), the de facto border between India and China, is not clearly demarcated and these two countries regularly accuse each other of encroaching on the territory of the other.