Vital humanitarian route reopens with a warning

The Salang highway, a vital humanitarian transit route linking the northern and southern parts of central Afghanistan, has been reopened to traffic following last week’s deadly avalanche. But experts warn of an even worse tragedy unless necessary safety precautions are taken immediately. "I can guarantee if this is not taken seriously it will happen again," Farid Homayoun, programme manager for the British NGO Halo Trust, told IRIN in the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Saturday. "People can use this route, but strong safety measures are urgently needed to safeguard that this catastrophe is not repeated," he said. Under the coordination of the UN, the mine-clearance NGO spearheaded last week’s rescue operation after an avalanche ripped through the highway on Wednesday, leaving five dead and trapping hundreds in and around its tunnel for up to 36 hours. The worst-affected area was near Qabri Kleaner, south of the tunnel, 40 km north of the town of Jabal os Saraj, where heavy snows buried over 57 vehicles. "These vehicles were virtually covered by two to three metres of snow," Homayoun said. Despite high winds and temperatures of minus 20 degrees Celsius, by late Thursday, over 300 trapped people had been rescued, and the tunnel, 100 km north of the capital, reopened. Some 89 victims, mainly women and children, received treatment for frostbite and dehydration. The operation was closely coordinated with the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), who provided medical assistance and a helicopter for those stranded north of the tunnel. According to Homayoun, who served as commander of the group's rescue operation, the problem was not the Salang tunnel itself, but the area around Qabri Kleaner. Traffic inside the tunnel, however, came to a standstill after snow blocked its southern entrance. "Many of the people simply turned off their engines and walked out," he said, adding that although the route was open to traffic, there were still some abandoned vehicles blocking access along the way. The Salang maintenance unit, a government-run force based in the area, was now working to remove these vehicles, he explained. Homayoun warned, however, that the route - critical for bringing assistance to millions of Afghans - was far from safe. "The weather is still bad, and there is always the threat of another storm in the area," he said, adding the Salang maintenance unit, mandated with keeping the route open, remained ill-equipped, lacking lubricants and spare parts for their antiquated snow-moving equipment. Calling for greater financial assistance for the unit, he said: "This route needs 24-hour attention. Teams there don't have enough fuel to keep the road clear." As for the tunnel itself, he recalled a similar tragedy in 1989, in which hundreds were trapped and died of carbon monoxide poisoning. "This is a disaster waiting to happen," he said. "The ventilation system is not working at all, and light bulbs placed inside the tunnel last month have since been broken or stolen." Asked what immediate measures could be applied, he noted that there was no effective communication between the two entrances to the tunnel. "The biggest problem this time around is that we didn't even know where the problem was. If people had proper communication, we could have targeted the affected area quicker." Commenting on the importance of the route, the UN spokesman in Kabul, Yusuf Hassan, told IRIN that the highway was the most secure and effective link between the two ends of the country. "This route is a launch pad to reach the northern provinces," he said. Meanwhile, as Kabul was in the process of reclaiming its former role as the nation's capital, the road was symbolically very important. He went on to say that as the front line used to be in the north, he expected thousands of displaced Afghans to use this route on their return home. The Salang highway lies in the heart of the Hindu Kush mountains, passing through the Kabul and Koh Daman valleys into the northern foothills which lead on to the Turkmenistan plains. Completed in 1964, at 4,000 metres above sea level, the tunnel is the highest of its kind in the world. Measuring 2.7 km in length, with an additional 4,972 metres of galleries constructed to keep the approaches free of snow, the tunnel was blown up by retreating Northern Alliance forces after the Taliban captured Kabul in 1996. Aid agencies hailed its reopening on 19 January 2002 after Russian and French experts had removed thousands of mt of debris and some unexploded ordnance from inside the tunnel and fro mthe approaches to it.