#1 Siachen Survivor Lance Naik Hanumanthappa Koppad
Lance Naik Hanumanthappa Koppad (33 Years) from village Betadur in Dharwad district of Karnataka, was a survivor of February 2016 Siachin Glacier Avalanche on Indian Army post which claimed around ten lives. Hanumanthappa was found during the post-disaster rescue operations by the Indian Army, six days after the disaster. He was rescued from 35 feet beneath the snow in -45°Celsius temperature, six days after an avalanche hit an Indian Army post in Siachen, at an altitude of 19,600 feet. His health was critical but survival news gave a chance to family members to celebrate his news of survival.
#2 He survived 13 months adrift at sea on raw fish, birds, rainwater and his own urine.
Jose Alvarenga left his home in El Salvador to hunt shark off the coast of Mexico in a 24-foot fibreglass boat. He was swept out to sea in a storm and had to rely on raw fish, birds caught by hand and rainwater to survive. His co-fisherman allegedly died of hunger and thirst as they could not stomach the raw food. In 2014, he washed up against the shores of the Marshall Islands where he was nursed back to health.
There is much scepticism surrounding Alvarenga's story, but many survival experts believe it to be genuine.
#3 Cannibalism to survive?
In 1972, a chartered flight carrying the Uruguayan Rugby Team crashed in the Andes. There was 45 people in all, of which only 16 people survived. On hearing a radio report that the search for them had been abandoned, 2 of the survivors set off across the mountains to find help. 72 days passed until help finally arrived. The 14 survivors had subsisted on the flesh of those who died in the plane crash and from the avalanche that followed after.
#4 When an expedition to Antarctica failed
Sir Ernest Shackleton led an expedition to Antarctica in 1914 but it failed when their ship crashed into an iceberg. For two years the crew survived as Shackleton led them across the continent while depending on the blubber of sea mammals after their rations were over. After leaving a part of his crew to camp on Elephant Island, he carried on further to get help from the nearest whaling station which took him 3 months.
#5 69 days in a caved-in mine
33 miners working in Chile's Atacama Desert were unaware that the old mine they were working in had caved in. They were more than 2000 feet under the surface of the Earth and as rescuers figured out, that by simply drilling through the ground, they would only cause the mine to collapse further. The miners survived on the few food rations and dirty motorised water until a rescue plan was decided. They would be hoisted up by a capsule through a rescue shaft in the mine. The miners had to dig through a few feet to reach the rescue shaft but luckily enough, gases like methane did not affect them as the ventilators were still working. The rescue operation took over 22 hours.
#6 When a holy man's tomb became his shelter
Mauro Prosperi took part in a marathon across the Moroccan Sahara in 1994 when he was blown off course by a sandstorm, losing complete track of where he was. He had landed up in the Algerian part of the Sahara where he found a shrine dedicated to a Muslim holy man. He spent 9 days in the abandoned mosque and the surrounding desert, despite trying to attract the attention of helicopters. He managed to meet a nomadic family who nursed him back to health. Prosperi survived on bats, snakes lizards and his own urine while he was lost.
#7 Drugged or deserted, he was lucky to survive
Ricky Megee's story isn't really clear. His car had broken down but then he later claimed that he had been drugged by hitchhikers and left for dead. He was found 71 days later by an Australian farmer in the Outback as a walking skeleton. Megee had survived by staying close to a dam and had eaten leeches, frogs and grasshoppers.
#8 40 days after the hurricane
Tami Oldham Ashcraft was sailing through the South Pacific with her boyfriend until they got stuck in a category 4 hurricane and their sailboat capsized. Ashcraft survived and after waking up hours later, she realised her mast was broken. She made a makeshift sail and plotted a course towards Hawaii which took her forty days complete up to Hilo Harbour.
Oldham published a book in 2000, expressing her grief and determination to survive called Red Sky In Mourning.
#9 Three weeks in the darkest Amazon
Yossi Ghinsberg travelled to Bolivia in search of adventure and agreed to join three other men on an expedition into the unchartered parts of the Amazon. After walking for four days, they ran out of supplies and had to eat monkeys to survive. After a month in the rain-forest they decided to build a raft and evacuate the jungle by river. However, the group had disagreements and split into pairs.
Ghinsberg and Kevin took the raft down the river while the other two men were never seen again. Ghinsberg lost track of Kevin and spent three weeks in the Amazon surviving on wild berries, snails and raw eggs until a search party for him finally found him.
Today he is a motivational speaker based in Australia.
#10 3 days in a sunken boat
Harrison Okene's tugboat sank 12 miles off the coast of Nigeria. While the rest of his crew drowned, he was the sole survivor because he managed to stay in a 4 ft sq air bubble with out food or anything to drink.
Okene was rescued by a team of South African divers and the video of his rescue went viral. His story is often dubbed as a miracle and a phenomenon for surviving in an air bubble for so long.
