New Delhi:
India's first scientific expedition team to the South Pole, braved temperatures as low as minus 54 degrees Celsius and navigated jagged sharp ice hills, to make it there in just eight days. The path has never been tried before by any other country, the scientists said.
The team was led by National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research director Rasik Ravindra.
"It was a great experience to be part of the maiden science expedition to South Pole. The interesting part was that we took the shortest route which nobody else has tried, to reach the South Pole in just eight days," 62 year old Ravindra told reporters.
It was not the bone-chilling minus 54 degrees Celsius, the difficultterrain or even the cold gusts blowing at 150 km/hour, but lighting astove and cooking that posed the biggest challenge to the eight-memberteam of India's maiden expedition to the South Pole.
"The toughest challenge was to cook, as in temperatures as low as minus 50 degrees Celsius it was difficult to light the stove," he said.
"We were carrying ready-to-eat meals with us but we had to put them in boiling water for cooking, and boiling water in this temperature was tough," the 62-year-old Ravindra told IANS.
The team said there were some depressing moments during the expedition but their determination and team spirit carried them through successfully.
"When we started, we were worried about the low temperature, high altitude and shortage of oxygen at that altitude. Many times our vehicles developed some problems, we faced a lot of problem melting ice into water and cooking," said Pradip Malhotra, expedition doctor.
The team, consisting of a geologist, glaciologist, geophysicist and a meteorologist as well as vehicle engineers, had left Maitri, India's second permanent research station on the Antarctica, on Nov 13.
"It was a gratifying experience and a lifetime opportunity. Once you reach there, you will realise the importance of basic things like fire, water and warmth. Despite making so much advancement in technology, you still have to depend on nature so much," said M. Javed Beg, in-charge of logistics during the expedition.
The expedition travelled on four specialised Arctic trucks and each of these vehicles, besides its human baggage, carried special gears, emergency medical kit, frozen food, and navigational and scientific instruments.
The scientists conducted five experiments during the journey.