He miraculously braved and survived the extreme chills in Siachen for six days with temperature falling below -45 degree Celsius after an avalanche stuck an Army post at 19,600 feet. Rescued alive after being trapped under 25 feet of snow in the Siachen glacier, Army jawan Lance Naik Hanamanthappa Koppad's condition is critical but stable. Lance Naik Hanamanthappa, who along with nine other soldiers was guarding India's borders in Siachen, is being flown to Delhi in a C-17 aircraft of the Indian Air Force (IAF) for treatment.
A special medical team is attending to Lance Naik Hanamanthappa and will be travelling along with him to Delhi. He will land at Air Force Station, Palam and will be rushed to the Army Research and Referral Hospital in Delhi. The soldier belongs to Betadur vilage in Dharwad district of Karnataka.
The Army jawan was miraculously rescued from Siachen, where he was trapped under 25 feet of snow for over six days. After being rescued from the glacier, he was brought to Partapur and later ferried to Thoise base. The C-17 aircraft will bring him to Delhi from Thoise.
A Junior Commissioned Officer (JCO) and nine other ranks of 19th Battalion, Madras Regiment, were buried under a mass of snow after their post was hit by the avalanche at the altitude of 19,600 feet close to the Line of Control (LoC) with Pakistan on Thursday. While Lance Naik Hanamanthappa miraculously survived, the nine other soldiers of the same battalion have been declared dead. Rescue teams have located mortal remains of all the remaining 9 soldiers and they are being brought out from the Avalanche site.
The nine soldiers who met an unfortunate end are Subedar Nagesha TT, Havildar Elumalai, Lance Havildar S Kumar, Lance Naik Sudheesh B, Sepoy Mahesha PN, Sepoy Ganesan G, Sepoy Rama Moorthy N, Sepoy Mustaq Ahmed S and Sepoy Nursing Assistant Suryawanshi SV.
The rescue efforts were conducted in extremely harsh conditions and was hampered by frequent snow blizzards, extreme freezing temperatures and low visibility apart from the effects of rarefied atmosphere in the high altitude.
The Indian Army has lost over 850 soldiers in the icy expanse of Siachen, the world's highest and most inhospitable battlefield, since 1984 when it preempted the Pakistani Army from occupying the glaciers and its dominant peaks by just a few hours.
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