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Lance Naik Hanamanthappa Koppad — Six Days Beneath the Ice

• Rank: Lance Naik
• Unit: 19 Madras
• Year: 2016
• Award: Sena Medal, posthumous

In February 2016, an avalanche struck an Indian Army post on the Siachen Glacier. Ten soldiers were buried.

Six days later, rescuers found Lance Naik Hanamanthappa Koppad alive beneath the snow. He was evacuated in critical condition but died shortly afterward.

The extraordinary rescue attracted national attention, yet the other nine soldiers must not become background characters. The article should name all ten men and explain that Siachen’s casualties are often caused not by bullets, but by altitude, cold, crevasses and avalanches.

The central question is not merely how one man survived for six days. It is why soldiers continue serving in a place where the landscape itself can become the enemy.

Individual survival within a collective sacrifice.