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Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued

theguardian.com

211–220 of 569 posts

Re: Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was surprised to hear that there were long stretches of dry walking between their location in the cave and the cave entrance. In particular there were dry stretches prior to the very nasty tiny hole they all squeezed through. I guess they were panicked and ran further than they needed to just to be extra sure?

Also looking at the side-view diagrams of the cave, if they were running away from the entrance because it was starting to fill up, I'm surprised that very tight hole they crawled through wasn't also underwater at the time since it looks like it is as low or lower than the cave entrance itself. They descended to below the entrance altitude after having gained a lot of altitude. I know there are probably no answers bu…

We don't know how far into the cave they were when the flood hit. They may have gone through the dry tight section before the flood pulse hit and they were unable to return.

The other possibility is that the various elevation diagrams published by the media may well be wrong. The only proper survey I have seen by cavers is the plan view (for example here: https://www.caverescue.org.uk/luang-nang-non-cave-rescue-tha... ). It looks like the produced diagrams have been... "estimated" from reports of what the rescuers were experiencing. The cave may have filled up from the entrance first and chased the team up the cave.

Re: Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued

#212
post #130

I'm more surprised by the fact that they went that far into the cave in the first place! The coach should be in prison now for putting so many kids in danger and be the cause of a rescue diver death!

Calling for prison without knowing much is very harsh. We don't know if the coach led them in or if he just followed them. We don't know how far in they went initially. Maybe they just went a bit inside the cave and then increasing water levels forced them further in. At least he stayed with the boys. Imagine if no adult had been there. Blaming the coach for the death of the rescue diver is completely uncalled for. T…

Agree, but I wonder if he even checked the weather forecast before getting into a cave. Which even for a complete amateur like me seems to be the most basic precaution (along with notifying someone that I am going there).

Re: Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued

#213
"If a man gets lost in the mountains, hundreds will search and often two or three searchers are killed. But the next time somebody gets lost, just as many volunteers turn out. Poor arithmetic, but very human. It runs through all our folklore, all human religions, all our literature—a racial conviction that when one human needs rescue, others should not count the price. Weakness? It might be the unique strength that wins us a Galaxy."

(Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein)

Re: Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued

#214
post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikipedia is the best website for following: 1. Current events. 2. Sports tournaments. The information entropy level is quite high, with basically no ads, extremely good formatting (relevant tables, charts etc.), and relatively unbiased. This doesn't even mention the benefit of getting simple background information on the subjects with just a simple click (or even a hover these days) It's really a treasure.

I find it even good for medical conditions, condensed history of major events, understanding geography and biography of actors, sportspersons and politicians. Actually, isn't it the * best * first website to learn about anything?

Please don't try to learn about controversial political topics there. The amount of editorial wars going on is stuggering - and the worst of it, you won't be able to tell when you're looking at a propaganda piece instead of an objective article because you need prior knowledge for that, and Wikipedia is exactly the place where people get their prior knowledge.

Re: Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued

#215

Man vs. nature, we are still bugs. What are your thoughts on how technology advancement in the next 30 years would change the way of this kind of rescue mission? Say in 2040, can a group of robots finish the mission in one day with ease? That will be awesome, people can be rescued from bad situations much sooner.

I cannot imagine how robots could be used for this kind of rescue in the near future. Each situation like this is too unique to allow for a generic 'life-saving robot'. Even if we were to really try to develop a state-of-the-art cave diving rescue robot, what would we use it for in this case? We still would have to have people working crisis psycology and sitting with the kids as they were extracted, and some way to get the status of the robot as it is kilometers underground with no signal and no easy way we can have a 2km cable. We would still have to figure out how to get the people actually out, which was only really accomplished in this case by getting the best of the best to teach the kids to get themselves out. A robot would not be able to help a child fit through a tiny hole underwater in the dark

Re: Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued

#217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it even good for medical conditions, condensed history of major events, understanding geography and biography of actors, sportspersons and politicians. Actually, isn't it the * best * first website to learn about anything?

I find learning mathematical concepts from Wikipedia very difficult

You should check out simple wikipedia, there's not a page for everything but there's quite a bit. Here's an example.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_(mathematics)

Re: Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued

#218
post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you imagine being there for days and days and suddenly a diver pops up?

Something like https://youtube.com/watch?v=9dG5KSD-8J4 >footage ... showing the moment the ship's cook was rescued from an air bubble on the ship, two days after the ship capsized

Super interesting. Can't comprehend how the sailor lived in that claustrophobia-inducing space for over 48 hours. Human spirit in these extreme situations is really something.

Re: Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued

#219
post #53

Been following the Guardian and their Thai based journalist, Michael Safi. But, was their any other non-TV English language media house that was covering the event minute by minute?

ABC (Australia) have had a live blog going the whole time - http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-07-10/thailand-cave-rescue-l...

Re: Thailand cave rescue: all 12 boys and coach successfully rescued

#220
post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1015105500105412610 Yes it was not an official call for help, but someone asked. He even acknowledged that experts were already on the field, and his first reaction was to just send goods there before advancing with engineering ideas. Following your idea why were there so many civilian divers? Why not let the Thai military do the job? That's just PR. Those attention-seeking ba…

The difference between the divers and Musk is that the divers did it without announcing their plans on Twitter. They just when there and helped. I think it's good that Musk tried to help, but the publicity he got with it makes me question his motivations. There is also no need for personal attacks

"think it's good that Musk tried to help, but the publicity he got..." If he got all that publicity, then hate the newspapers who kept giving it to him, not the guy who was just happy to help. He probably kept tweeting because that's where he first was "contacted" about the subject and had some cool photos and videos to show.
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