AFGHANISTAN: Tunnel Tragedy

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Mystery in the mountains

Kabul is a city in mourning. According to age-old custom, red banners have been flying throughout the capital. The daily 5-min. death notices broadcast by state-owned Radio Kabul have lasted from 15 to 25 min. Since the invasion in 1979, tales of carnage have been as ubiquitous in Kabul as the Soviet army. This time, however, the Afghan capital is reeling from a disaster that perhaps no one intended.

It happened two weeks ago, but because of restrictions on journalists moving about the country, word started trickling out only last week. According to Afghan refugees newly arrived in Pakistan, a fuel tanker in a military convoy collided with another military truck 70 miles north of Kabul, in the 1.7-mile-long Salang Tunnel through the Hindu Kush mountains. Initial reports said that there was a fiery explosion. As many as 700 Soviet troops and 2,000 Afghan soldiers and civilians may have died. Later press estimates put the total number of deaths at between 500 and 600.

Details of the incident are sketchy. Abdul Wadood Wafamal, first secretary in the Afghan embassy in New Delhi, would confirm only that a "gas tanker" had exploded in the tunnel. Without offering additional information on the accident, he argued against reports of enormous casualties. "We would have had to call for help internationally if such a disaster had occurred," said Wafamal. But Western diplomatic and military sources, citing reports from Kabul, and Afghan refugee leaders in New Delhi claim that a major tragedy did occur. One eyewitness, a refugee who gave his name only as Abdul, was riding on a bus that was about 65 ft. from the tunnel's northern entrance when he heard an explosion. "Black, oily smoke started pouring out," he said. Several passengers on the bus were overcome by smoke, and one died.

According to some accounts, drivers of cars, trucks and buses evidently continued to enter the tunnel after the explosion. Soviet troops, fearing that the explosion might have been a rebel attack, reportedly closed off both ends with tanks and trapped uncounted victims inside. Some burned to death; others were killed by smoke and by carbon monoxide escaping from vehicles whose drivers kept their engines idling to stay warm in the freezing cold. The devastation was so great that afterward six trucks laden with bodies, mostly Soviet troops, reportedly were driven away from the tunnel.

The 18-year-old tunnel is located on the heavily traveled Salang Highway, a principal military supply route linking Kabul with the southern Soviet republics. There have been rumors for the past two years that Afghan rebels planned to blow up the tunnel. Western military and diplomatic sources in Pakistan said that any sabotage that closed the tunnel for a long time could severely curtail delivery of military supplies to the 100,000 Soviet troops stationed in Afghanistan. For that reason, it is well guarded. An insurgent group called the Islamic Party belatedly claimed responsibility, but few diplomats took the pronouncement seriously. If the tragedy in the Salang Tunnel was more than an accident, by week's end there was precious little evidence of it.