In 1965, CIA-India's IB lost a deadly nuclear device atop Nanda Devi range leaving it radioactive!

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1. Did Nanda Devi range engulfed deadly plutonium?

It all started right after India lost to China in the Sino-Indo war in year 1962, which resulted in the latter accumulating territories around the country’s border. The wound was fresh and both countries were in no mood to let the other out of their sight.

2. Indo-China War 1962

India wanted to keep a tab on China’s military growth, as a hunch of them attempting to attack the Indian borders again was on rise.

3. China's first nuclear test

And, after China conducted its first nuclear test in Xinjiang province in the year 1964, it was almost essential for India to deploy a nuclear sensing device atop nearest mountain range, Nanda Devi, to keep track of any further tests.

4. Great risk

The plan was to install a nuclear-powered sensing device at the peak of 25,643ft (India’s 2nd highest peak). But, it involved a great risk, for which India partnered with CIA.

5. CIA-IB's secret summit kicks off

Next year in 1965, CIA joined hands with India’s Intelligence Bureau (IB) and a summit was planned. According to the whole arrangement, a climbing team comprising of secret summiteers would carry equipment weighing around 56kg, along with an antenna measuring 8-10ft in height, two transceiver sets, and the pivotal component, a system for nuclear auxiliary power (SNAP) generator.

6. Plutonium capsules

In addition to all this was a special container, which was carrying seven plutonium capsules that would be the nuclear fuel for the generator. The finale date for the onset of summit was decided to be October 18th.

7. Partial victory

On the set date, the camping team under the leadership of Manmohan Singh Kohli reached reach Camp IV, which was at 24,000ft, when something terrible happened.

8. Snow storm halts mission

The team was caught up in an extremely horrifying blizzard that forced them to re-think their plan to move ahead. With all that heavy mountain gear, weighty equipments and harsh cold conditions, it was getting tough to sustain at such high peak and with every second they were losing their chance of survival.

9. MS Kohli and team returns (left)

It was a tough call for team leader MS Kohli, who had to choose between his men and nature. And, he chose his men. The team decided to abandon the summit and return with the equipment and the generator.

10. Team decides to abandon mission

The nuclear-fuelled generator nicknamed Guru Rinpoche, by the climbing sherpas after Buddhist god, was already emitting heat. They knew about the radioactive dangers of carrying it down, hence they refused.

11. Equipment left atop Nanda Devi

With no willing source to take such heavy machinery back to the base camp, the team decided to secure all the equipment including the deadly stock of plutonium, near Camp IV and returned.

12. Nuclear device goes missing

The team returned next year, in May 1966, to resume their work, but was shocked to find that everything missing, including the stock of plutonium that was half the size of atomic bomb, which was dropped on Hiroshima. Despite several attempts to locate the equipment and nuclear generator, nothing was found.

13. Failed search attempts

Over the years, endless search operations were conducted, but all of them failed miserably. Ever since, the area was cordoned off for anyone, other than Indian Army or IMF sponsored expeditions. All civilians are debarred from climbing Nanda Devi, citing environmental reason.

14. Is it still there?

According to experts, the plutonium capsules that have a longevity of over a hundred years, might still be buried somewhere in Nanda Devi range.

15. Burying a secret

After the secret mission to install and retrieve, the nuclear device atop Nanda Devi, failed, CIA and India’s IB decided to drop the operation and bury its secrecy. But, this failure didn’t mean that military operations were stopped. Even today, the fear of large-scale plutonium contamination exists.

16. Search team at Rishi Ganga

The Indo-Tibetan Border Police Battalion, led by Kohli was moved to Tapovan, near the Rishi Ganga banks, to keep a regular check for any radioactivity in the waters.

17. Testing Ganga water

For years, special team deployed by the Indian Army, tested all the water sources and rocks for hints of radiation along the Ganges range.

18. HH-43B Huskies with IAF

In order to do so, the Indian government even got two HH-43B Huskies; an ultra-modern, high-altitude helicopter that were being used by the American Air Force.

19. Team members of Nanda Devi summit 1965

“With over 200 hundred people involved for over 3 years, it was 20th century’s greatest mountaineering-cum-espionage operation that tested the limits of human endurance,” mentioned Kohli, to a leading daily.

20. Is Ganga radioactive?

He added, “…lives of millions of Indians would be affected, especially those living along the Ganga, right up to Kolkata.”

21. 2nd summit at Nanda Kot

Sometime later, in 1967, a team of American expedition experts along with the team of Kohli and a few other Indian climbers such as Sonam Wangyal, H.C.S. Rawat and G.S. Bhangu, made another attempt to install a second nuclear-powered listening device on Nanda Devi’s neighboring peak, at 22,510ft Nanda Kot.

22. Attempt to install nuclear device

After successfully working for nearly a year, the device developed a snag and soon it was brought down, which was another scary event.

23. Finding the lost quipment

Kohli, now 83-year-old, in his 2005 published book, One More Step, describes the journey. “When the team reached the Dome (the Nanda Kot Dome where the device was installed), they were shocked to see no sign of the entire equipment. They dug a couple of feet and saw an amazing sight.”

24. Nanda Kot nuclear mission

“There was a perfectly sound cave formed with the hot generator at the centre. With the continuous heat emitted from the generator, the snow had melted up to 8ft in all directions, creating the spherical cave!” He titled this chapter in the book “Cathedral In Ice”.

25. No longer a secret

For nearly a decade the news of the missing plutonium atop Nanda Devi, was kept hidden from the world. But, it was first broke in the international media, by an American magazine ‘Outside’, in 1977, and the secret was no longer in hide.

26. Morarji Desai before announcement in Parliament

The immediate reaction was international outrage, and then Indian PM Morarji Desai had to admit to the mission in front of the Parliament.

27. Haunting gravity of situation

Kohli recalls, “He didn’t know about the wider ramifications of the nuclear-powered generator’s loss. Only after it was lost and we heard that millions of Indians could die did the gravity of the situation dawn on us.”

28. Nanda Devi in danger?

Does this mean that the plutonium capsules could still be ‘ticking on the mountain somewhere’?