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Almost a week after a Himalayan avalanche struck a remote Indian military outpost, rescuers had all but given up hope of finding anybody alive.

 To survive under a 25-foot wall of hardened snow would be miraculous, if not impossible, they figured.

 But on Monday, a search team pulled Lance Naik Hanamanthappa from an icy coffin deep in the snow, where he had been buried alive at an altitude of more than 19,000 feet, according to AFP.

The soldier - spared from death by an air pocket - was in critical condition when found and was airlifted to a hospital in Delhi, according to the BBC.

 "We hope the miracle continues," the army said in a statement after the rescue. "Pray with us."

 Ten soldiers were buried when the avalanche struck on Feb. 3 in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir.

 Nine others stationed on the deadly Siachen glacier, which is near the disputed border between India and Pakistan, are confirmed dead, according to the Indian army statement.
 "All other soldiers are regrettably no longer with us," Gen. D.S. Hooda said, according to AFP.

 The army noted that the rescued corporal has pneumonia and liver and kidney problems and was placed on a ventilator "to protect his airway and lungs in view of his comatose state."

 "He is expected to have a stormy course in the next 24 to 48 hours due to the complications caused by re-warming and establishment of blood flow to the cold parts of the body," the statement said.

 Hanamanthappa’s relatives were scheduled to visit him in the hospital Tuesday night, but first he received the nation’s highest-profile guest: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, according to the Telegraph.

 "No words are enough to describe [the] endurance and indomitable spirit of Lance Naik Hanamanthappa," Modi said, according to the newspaper. "He’s an outstanding soldier."
 The massive avalanche slammed into the military outpost last Wednesday on the northern side of the glacier.

 Hooda, the army general, estimated that the avalanche was about a half-square mile; he described it as "an entire mountain of rock-solid snow," according to the Telegraph.

 With the help of rescue dogs, army and air force teams began a dangerous recovery effort that involved cutting through the snow with chain saws, according to the Associated Press.

 The chances of surviving such a disaster were so remote, the BBC reported, that Modi offered his condolences last week.

 Known as the "world’s highest battlefield," the Siachen glacier - claimed entirely by both India and Pakistan - is also one of the world’s most dangerous environments in which to stage military operations.

 Thousands of soldiers who are stationed in the precarious region risk being flattened by avalanches and landslides or frozen to death by temperatures that plummet as low as -76F, according to the BBC.

 Thousands have died on the glacier since 1984, when India and Pakistan began fighting over the disputed territory, according to the BBC. More soldiers have been killed by the grueling conditions than by hostile fire, the AP noted.

 Last month, an avalanche killed four Indian soldiers on patrol. And in 2012, an avalanche killed 129 soldiers in the Pakistan-controlled portion of the glacier, according to the AP.

 As The Washington Post’s Richard Leiby and Simon Denyer reported in 2012, both sides of the conflict would prefer not to spend billions of dollars defending the disputed territory.

 "But," they wrote, "both sides’ national pride and historical enmity always seem to stall progress on demilitarizing that frozen region of Kashmir, where conflicts have erupted since 1947, but where a cease-fire has held since 2003."

 Shahzad Chaudhry, a retired Pakistani air vice marshal, told The Post at the time that "deployment of forces by Pakistan and India in Siachen is a useless deployment."

 "So what is the hurdle?" Chaudhry asked. "It’s actually the fear that if one side withdraws, the other could occupy its positions."