The threads about politicians (thanks Stu) reminded me of the president of Chile, who knows how to get in the picture and rabbits on a bit given half a chance.
Most extraordinary thing about the Chilean national heartwarming drama is the way those really responsible for the rescue have been more or less ignored. I mean the mining engineers and the US drilling firm that managed to make a hole regular enough in shape to work with the navy-designed capsule, but not vertical or straight because of all the galleries it had to avoid on the way down... a fairly amazing feat.
I am a late-night person so saw the first arrivals live. During the longueurs while waiting for the rescue proper to begin, one BBC hack, at a loss for something new to say, burbled that the videophone had enabled the trapped miners to 'talk to their wives... to their husbands... (pause, then slightly crossly) no, not to their husbands of course...'
I am still giggling about that one.
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Well spotted - The President has made an effort to look like an all round good egg - no doubt he is, especially in comparison to some who have ruled the country.
i was surprised that the Americans haven't been acknowledged as much as they should have. Maybe part of the propaganda war being waged in Chile.
Apparently the drilling company has said that getting Liverpool FC out of the hole they find themselves in would be too much of a challenge ! :-)
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i thought it was a fitting tribute getting the first miners out on maggie thatchers birthday
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>> getting the first miners out on maggie thatchers birthday
One of the spate of mine-escape cartoons today, in the Indie I think, showed a zombie-witch-style Mrs Thatcher emerging from the rescue capsule brandishing a big axe, with a round-eyed, infantile Prime Minister greeting her with the cry: 'Mummy!'
Devilish clever some of these cartoonist chaps, what?
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i miss matt since i stopped buying the graph and moved over to the murduk empire :-(
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>> i miss matt
Absolute top man, makes me laugh aloud at least twice a week. Patrick Garland can be wonderful too.
What on earth lured you into the Digger's garden with all the goannas, funnelwebs and dingoes BB? Was it the explicit photos of the spud-faced nipper getting his rocks off, or the court circular in the other main tabloid?
Mind you one can't actually love any of the comics. One never could really.
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>> Patrick Garland can be wonderful
Damn! I meant Nicholas Garland. I hate making mistakes like that.
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I thought it was rather touching that poor old $billionaire Prez Piñera said he wouldn't be taking any rest until all the miners were rescued, perhaps *he* deserves a medal or 3.
Last edited by: Dog on Thu 14 Oct 10 at 15:29
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Yes fully agree with AC, not 100% sure how hole was drilled most likely rotation of a reamer with something to follow the original small diameter hole. I would guess the cuttings were removed by the trapped guys as the cuttings fell down the original hole. The decision to run casing (to stabilize weak upper formations) in top 90m was a great call, must have been a lot of pressure to recover the men and not run casing.
Glad to see the drillers got it right........normally you only hear of our mistakes.
Jim
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It was an incredible feat of engineering, and I agree those responsible were not given sufficient credit.
One of my colleagues observed over lunch today that it would never happen in the UK. The planning meetings would be days of Death by Powerpoint, and the risk assessments would take another month. Ultimately, every attempt to start work would involve a group of little men in hi-vis jackets and hard hats, tapping their clipboards with their pens, and saying "You can't drill that hole there, mate."
And woe betide anyone who left a trailing cable anywhere, or hadn't been on a training course for lifting something.
All ;-) of course.
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But should there not have been an alternative (aka escape) route out all along. I cannot quite believe they were allowed to have no other route to these miners until a big hole was drilled. What if someone was injured in the fall of rocks back 70 days ago?
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>> But should there not have been an alternative (aka escape) route out all along.
ISTR from watching Kate Humble's "Who do you think you are?" a while ago that some of her relations were involved with a mining disaster in the North East of the UK where two hundred or so men and boys died, when the engine, or beam(?), fell down the only shaft and blocked it.
As memory serves, as a consequence of that accident, in the UK there had to be at least two ways in and out of a mine.
A quick google reveals:
www.dmm.org.uk/archives/a_hart01.htm
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Perhaps it's the health and safety at work culture which you mock that makes the likelihood of such an incident occurring here less likely.
We'd have to re-establish our own mining industry to find out.
Last edited by: Soupytwist on Fri 15 Oct 10 at 13:33
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>> Perhaps it's the health and safety at work culture which you mock....
It's not the principle behind "elf 'n' safety" which bugs me - there's a lot because of preventable disasters, like New Hartley Colliery, Flixborough, Bhopal, etc - it just the wholesale "nanny knows best" and heavy handed enforcement of relatively minor things that yanks my chain.
To protect individuals from exploitation or danger managed by others is fine, but those same individuals should be allowed to make their own (reasonably informed) judgement for things affecting themselves.
For instance, If you want the wind through your hair riding a motorbike, why not?
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A picture and story in a newspaper made me giggle a while back, it was workers on a roof in Delhi.
they weren't wearing hard hats, and the story pointed that out.
thing is, there was seemingly nothing above them, the risk was falling from the roof.
surely if you fell from a high roof, a hard hat would do sod all to protect you?
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See this for yesterday's Matt:
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/matt/?cartoon=8061139&cc=8035832
But leave off the extra bit to see today's.
Last edited by: rtj70 on Thu 14 Oct 10 at 17:01
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thank you sir
now saved on speed dial
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How long before the conspiracy theorists say it all never happened and was filmed at a Lunar studio?
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Goodish piece on the rescue, I think by Tracey Corrigan, in today's Terrorflag business section.
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Yesterday I heard on the radio an extract of a speech the president gave after the end of the rescue operation. He was very fulsome in his praise for the outside help Chile had received.
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>> very fulsome in his praise for the outside help Chile had received.
Quite rightly, although the Chilean government has paid the cost (quite cheap at a couple of tens of millions of dollars).
In the OP I was really talking about the British media which concentrated almost exclusively on the human interest side of the story, in all its detail, and neglected the technical aspects.
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The whole episode would make a good disaster movie along the lines of those classic ones of the 70's.
All we need is Bruce Willis and a vest...
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The engineer as hero - R.P.
