31–40 of 158 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Diarrhea will make you die a lot faster, your attitude is a bit blasè for water that is potentially contaminated with feces.
Why would there be feces? They aren't in sewers. And even if there was a chance of diarrhoea, what would be your alternative?
Apparently there is water seeping into the space they are in. I'd drink that before I'd drink the inundation water.
"None of them can swim" Great idea to take them down into a flooded cave in rainy season. Even though now found, they will still be very lucky to get out alive. How? I think it is the case of learn to swim and dive right down there or die. Whatever was their coach thinking?
I actually find comments like yours really grating. Blaming people for situations largely beyond their control is not productive or helpful, especially when ended with inflammatory questioning designed to provoke.
Those divers are super brave. This was done under extremely difficult circumstances, they risked their lives with a reasonably high chance of at least one of them not making it back.
I could not do what they have done - not if my life depended on it....
Personally, I think they deserve the very highest honours we can give them as a country.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Diarrhea will make you die a lot faster, your attitude is a bit blasè for water that is potentially contaminated with feces.
Why would there be feces? They aren't in sewers. And even if there was a chance of diarrhoea, what would be your alternative?
Because they have to go too.
How does cave oxygen supply work? Would they not run out of oxygen by the time they can get out? Also, one detail that CNN got that I didn't see in this article: it seems the cave is one kilometer underground ! [1] EDIT 1: The CNN article partially answers my first question: "Rescuers will also pump air into the cave to improve conditions." EDIT 2: Another important bit here [2]: "It won't be anything like diving tha…
Airbells, which are small air pockets in an otherwise flooded section are relatively unusual, and from the video footage it looked like the football team had climbed up into a larger Fossil gallery overlying the current (active) flooded section. Hopefully this means they will also be well protected from any future more extreme flooding.
These little stream inlets form a source of drinking water. Even when the main cave river is a turbid mess, there's normally plenty of clean little streams coming in - some of which will be fed by percolation water (seeping through rock) and therefore effectively 'mineral' water.
Often when journalists describe caves in the press, 'one kilometer underground' would be better described as 'one kilometer into' the cave. Certainly the cave doesn't look very deep, most river caves form fairly horizontally.
For digging into or exploring from above, what matters much more is how thick the rock is above them (or above a chamber that they can reach), and what it's made out of.
Locating them on the surface (i.e. figuring out where to start digging) will also be a challenge - most caves are not surveyed with a high degree of accuracy, and doing so through a flooded, flowing, low-visibility section is extremely difficult. (One of the rescue divers, John Volanthen, has done some pretty amazing stuff with a water-proof data-logging accelerometer + flux compass in this area - the "Lazy Boy Sump Mapper".) They will probably dive a radio beacon into the cave + then use that to locate the party, combined with a (dry) survey within the cave to figure out the extent of the available space to the survivors.
Radio comms should be setup quite soon - one system which may be of general interest to the Hackernews community is the cave-link: http://www.cavelink.com/cl3x_neu/index.php/en/ It has a lot of automation + resending / checksumming of messages to enable transmission over the very low bandwidth and noisy VLF channel through hundreds of metres of rock.
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>have to wait several weeks A BBC article said it could be months, much less weeks. It's the beginning of the rainy season. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-44692813
It's interesting, I wonder what the pros and cons are for drilling to retrieve them or send supplies. In the mine collapse situations that I'm aware of, there was already infrastructure on hand for heavy equipment and drilling. I have to imagine that the dangers of cave diving are multiplicative - you don't get enough skill-based improvement from any given trip into/out to make repeated trips a safe option.
Those divers are super brave. This was done under extremely difficult circumstances, they risked their lives with a reasonably high chance of at least one of them not making it back.
I have a weird phobia where I'm afraid of caves - the very idea of caving in small caves where people wriggle through has always terrified me and as for cave diving.... I could not do what they have done - not if my life depended on it.... Personally, I think they deserve the very highest honours we can give them as a country.
This is great news, but sadly their lives are still very much at risk. They are too deep to drill down to, there is a lot of rain to pump out (and the rain can continue), and they can't swim (even if they could, this is a hard dive for those that can). Found this from a Bill Whitehouse: Bill Whitehouse, vice-chair of the British Cave Rescue Council which is helping the rescue efforts, played down speculation the boys…
How does cave oxygen supply work? Would they not run out of oxygen by the time they can get out? Also, one detail that CNN got that I didn't see in this article: it seems the cave is one kilometer underground ! [1] EDIT 1: The CNN article partially answers my first question: "Rescuers will also pump air into the cave to improve conditions." EDIT 2: Another important bit here [2]: "It won't be anything like diving tha…
Most cave systems are relatively permeable. Even if you can't see a route out, there are likely to be paths for air movement.
The immediate threat is the accumulation of carbon dioxide rather than a deficit of oxygen. Fresh air is about 0.04% CO2, but most caves have ambient CO2 levels of over 1% and some as high as 6%. You'll start feeling quite unwell above 4%, violently ill above 7% and there's a risk of seizures, unconsciousness and death above 10%. Normal air is about 21% oxygen, you can cope perfectly well on about 16% oxygen and survive on as little as 10% oxygen.
The boys seem alert and in reasonably good spirits, so I'd say that the air in their section of the cave is fairly good.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have a weird phobia where I'm afraid of caves - the very idea of caving in small caves where people wriggle through has always terrified me and as for cave diving.... I could not do what they have done - not if my life depended on it.... Personally, I think they deserve the very highest honours we can give them as a country.
That's not a weird phobia by any means. That's very common and it's called claustrophobia.