Tangdhar, Oct. 10: Eagle One has vanished. There is no trace of it. One moment it was there, perched at 14,500 feet, the next it was gone, blown away. It took 12 men to wherever it has plunged.

Eagle One is ? was ? an Indian army post, about five km south of here. Together with Eagle Two on the western end of Shamsabari Ridge, the Eagle complex is a vital observation point.

On Saturday morning, when the quake struck, there were 12 soldiers of the 12 Jammu and Kashmir Rifles (JAKRIF) battalion of the army at Eagle One.

The battalion troops were waiting to be relieved by the Dogras this month.

It is not proper to name the men till the army and the bureaucracy have identified the bodies and notified the families. The tragedy of the 12 men of Eagle One is just one of the more evocative ones out of here. Life isn’t any good anyway in these parts. And then there is a quake that notches7.6 on the Richter scale!

The northern face of the hill atop which Eagle One was perched ? from Tangdhar one can see its snowcapped top ? is a gradual incline. The climb ends in a sheer 1,500-metre drop into the Kasarkathan Nar, a nullah, that demarcates the Line of Control.

Colonel S.K. Malik, the deputy brigade commander of the Tangdhar-headquartered Shakti Vijay Brigade, trekked to Eagle One last Thursday, two days before the quake.

A photograph of Eagle One taken from Eagle Two barely identifies the post. It was clearly on the highest hilltop offering a clear view of the mountains on the Pakistani side.

“The first thought that came to me that morning (of the earthquake) was about Eagle One,” Malik says.

Eagle One had a narrow base at the top, with a diameter of a little more than two metres. It was built on two levels, the upper level was for observation, the lower level for living in.

The debris of Eagle One is now mostly in the nullah and a little on the Pakistan side. An army aviation Cheetah pilot who made several recces of the place said it was impossible to land and not a single body could be seen.

“Eagle One used to rest on boulders in the hilltop. The fellows now must be buried under those huge boulders after plummeting down,” he said. Since Saturday, it has also snowed on the hill where Eagle One stood.

One army patrol that made it to some of the debris on the Indian side came back with the remains of one soldier. The face was unshaven, the pilot said. The remains did not weigh more than 10 kg.

Last evening, the army summoned two detachments of mountaineers from the High Altitude Warfare School in Sonamarg and Gulmarg.

The detachments led by a major reached the spot this morning. Brigade headquarters in Tangdhar was awaiting further communication from them.