If The Government Doesn't, Veteran Volunteers Will!
"Were in constant contact with dozens of families, helping each work through a specific extraction plan while reassuring them that someone actually cares about their safety and well-being."
"We're operating very close to the wire financially, between housing, food, clothing, medical expenses, transportation."
Robin Rickards, retired corporal
"These Afghans believed in Canada and it's shameful that we still have not seen a full government plan and response."
"Individual veterans are stepping in to do what they can in the interim, but both our Veterans and these interpreters deserve so much better."
Kate Rusk, co-founder, Not Left Behind
An organization counting retired military officers and diplomats among
its ranks is looking for volunteers to welcome and help integrate any
former Afghan interpreters and their families who end up being evacuated
to Canada. The Star
A group of Canadian veterans is busy involving themselves aiding in the financing of the evacuation of interpreters and other people in Afghanistan who chose to work for the Canadian mission from regions in the country close to the capital Kabul. It is widely recognized as critically humanitarian to see that these compromised Afghan citizens leave the country before the Taliban succeed in their mission to take complete control. At which time it is fairly well guaranteed that the fate of Afghan civilians who had seen fit to aid foreign missions and their militaries in fighting the Taliban will be victims of vengeance.
A group has been formed named Not Left Behind whose mission it is to do what they can for as many Afghans as they can manage to rescue from their untenable position as sitting ducks for the Taliban. While the government of Canada has repeatedly stated its intention to rescue approximately 235 people linked to the Canadian presence in Afghanistan as part of a UN-authorized, U.S.-led mission to capture Osama bin Laden and aid in rescuing Afghanistan from the Islamist talons of the Taliban, it has as yet done nothing practical and time is short.
The group was co-founded by the sister of Capt.Nichola Goddard, killed in 2006 while on a mission in Afghanistan, representing the first Canadian female member of the military to die in action. They have so far managed to expedite the safe transfer of 20 families in the last few days, from Afghanistan to Canada. Kate Rusk, sister of Captain Goddard, has been heavily involved in this rescue effort, hoping the government itself will be moved to step in and facilitate the immediate transfer of those awaiting rescue from a certain bleak future.
The group awaiting rescue represents interpreters along with staff who worked at the Kabul-based Canadian diplomatic mission, along with their vulnerable family members. Countries that fought the counter-insurgency have been called upon by Human Rights Watch to organize an orderly and swift rescue of those Afghans who were involved with their day-to-day work in the country, all of whom have been threatened with reprisals by the Taliban.
"I know even in the last number of weeks that the situation has gotten worse, that lives are on the line. The most important thing I want to convey with regards to this operation is that we know that Afghans put their own lives at risk by helping the Canadian effort in the war there, and we want to do right by them", said Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino. But the Afghans in question are still waiting for official Canadian governmental action on their behalf.
Control of large areas of Afghanistan has fallen to the Taliban advance just in the three months since the U.S. announced its intention to remove remaining American forces. The Afghan National Military, without the support of their U.S. allies have been unable to counter the advance of the Taliban, who have already secured all border points with adjoining countries.
Afghan civilians have fled across their borders with countries like Tajikistan seeking haven; others attempt to procure travel documents before Afghan security collapses entirely. Although the Afghan military and the national police have greater fighting numbers than the Taliban, morale problems beset their efficacy, a situation that has become more pronounced by recent Taliban advances, encountering little opposition.
"Mr. Trudeau, I am a father. My daughter is a year-and-a-half old. From
one father to another, I beg you to please help me and my family to get
out of Afghanistan before the Taliban find us."
"If Canada does not act immediately, me and my wife, my daughter, and my
brothers will be captured by the Taliban. They will hang me, shoot me
and cut my head off. They will kill my wife and daughter. They will kill
my brothers … you promised me my family would one day come to Canada
[and] enjoy the peace that your family enjoy every day."
Sayed Shah, former Afghan interpreter for Canadian Forces in Afghanistan
Supporters of the Taliban carry the Taliban's signature white flags in
the Afghan-Pakistan border town of Chaman, Pakistan, Wednesday, July 14,
2021. (AP Photo/Tariq Achkzai)
"We are so happy. I feel like a mountain has been removed from my chest." "Do you know the film Armageddon, where they have to save the world? That's what this has felt like." Thai Navy SEAL cave rescuer
"When the last person came out there was no cheering, just relief that we had finished our mission." "Inside the cave it was dark and quiet. Everyone was just very focused." Dr. Suttiwit Junpirom, former Thai Navy SEAL
"This is an important event in my life." "There were times when I cried. Happy. Very happy to see all Thai people love each other." Rachapol Ngamgrabuan, Chiang Rai press office
"They are forced to do something that no kid has ever done before. They are diving in something considered [an] extremely hazardous environment in zero visibility." "I was very scared, because when I saw the diver and the kid in the horizon, we can't see that far but maybe about 40 metres, I still didn't know if it was a casualty or a kid." "But when I saw that he was alive and breathing and seemed to be all right, it felt very good." Ivan Karadzic, Danish diver, rescue team
"In the cave, the [Wild Boars coach Ekkapol Chantawong] taught the boys how to meditate so they could pass the time without stress. That saved their lives." "He would rather die [himself] than lose a single Wild Boar." Patcharadanai Kittisophano, monk, Phrathat Doi Wao temple
Thai military personnel inside the cave during the rescue operations.
The 25-year-old assistant coach of the Wild Boar soccer team out of the border town of Mae Sai trained for ten years as a Buddhist monk. His parents died in Myanmar leaving him an orphan as a young boy and he entered the Buddhist monkhood in Thailand which gave him the emotional support he required to survive alone in the world. He works there now as a custodian as well as coaching the boys on the Wild Boar team. After he was ordained he took care of the younger novices. He was well accustomed to working with children, not all that much more of one himself.
During the ordeal trapped in the cave he taught the twelve boys he had led into the cave for an adventure after a practise game, how to meditate, to take their minds and thoughts up and away from what they were suffering. That day of entry they were celebrating the 17th birthday of one of the boys and had with them snacks and water. Those were apportioned among them all while they awaited rescue for ten agonizingly long days of being trapped above the flood waters on the stone wall of the cave's ledge just above the flood waters. He alone refused to take his share of the food.
The town where the Wild Boars play soccer, Mae Sai, is located close to where Thailand, Myanmar and Laos borders are congruent in the Golden Triangle of the region. The coach and three of the soccer players trapped in the cave are ethnic minorities and stateless. Among them a 14-year-old sent by his parents from Myanmar to Thailand to obtain an education superior to what he could attain in Myanmar. Adul Sam-on, attending school in the town is at the top of his class in academics and sports. He speaks English, Thai, Burmese, Mandarin and Wa, and it was he who communicated with the English-speaking rescuers who first discovered their presence.
Members of the Royal Thai Navy are pictured with the 12 schoolboys,
members of a local soccer team, and their coach, who were trapped in the
Tham Luang Cave network in Northern Thailand.
The team and their coach were rescued in three attempts; the first took four, another four, and the third tranche of four boys and their coach for a total of five. They were given tranquilizers before diving under the direction and guidance of the professional diver/rescuers. There are hints that the drugs given them were not just to calm their nerves, but to dull their senses to the point of semi-consciousness to avoid panic. They were one kilometre deep into the side of the mountain and four kilometres within the cavern-and-passageway complex that the team of rescuers guided them carefully out of to safety.
It was the same team each time that undertook the mission, three times in succession with rest periods between each. When the first eight had been brought out and five remained to be rescued in a race against an anticipated monsoon onslaught heavier than normal, as their oxygen was being depleted in the cave, three Navy SEALs and an army medic remained behind with the five. They themselves emerged shortly after the final evacuation had been successfully concluded and all those rescued helicoptered to hospital.
The boys were rescued during a complex three-day operation AFP
It is over, the fear, trepidation, suspense, drama. An economist has estimated the total cost of the rescue operation at around $120 million. That works out to less than ten million for each of the stranded boys and their coach. Needless to say there was another cost, that of the life of the ex-Thai Navy SEAL Saman Gunan who, while delivering oxygen supplies to the cave with the boys awaiting rescue, himself running out of oxygen on his return to the outside, died on his mission.
Former Thai Navy SEAL Sgt. Saman Kunan died while returning from an operation to deliver tanks to the cave.
Hoping for Miracles of Divine Intervention RESCUED!
"Inside
the cave is tough. I can guarantee that we will not panic, we will not
stop our mission, we will not let the sacrifice of our friend [Saman
Gunan, volunteer ex Thai Navy SEAL delivering supplies underwater to the
children and their rescuers who drowned from lack of oxygen in the
flooded passageway on Friday] go to waste." "We can no longer wait for all conditions [to be ready] because circumstances are pressuring us." "We
originally thought the boys can stay safe inside the cave for quite
some time, but circumstances have changed. We have limited amount of
time." Thai SEAL commander Rear Adm. Arpakorn Yookongkaew
Hundreds of rescuers with equipment continue the rescue operation at the Tham Luang Nang Non cave on July 6.
"It's
very likely that while the boys were in the cave but not yet discovered
by rescuers that they experienced various degrees of anxiety, fear,
confusion, vulnerability and dependency, and perhaps hopelessness." "Being
discovered was a moment of elation. But that is now followed by the
reality that a difficult technical rescue might be necessary, which
caries with it disappointment for the boys and a new set of fears." Paul Auerback, Department of Emergency Medicine, medical school, Stanford University
On the plus side in this situation in Mae Sai, Thailand, the 25-year-old
coach of the Wild Boars soccer team, who led a dozen of the team's
players ranging in age from 11 to 16 into the now-monsoon-flooded Tham
Luang Nang Non cave, Ekapol Chanthawong, had extensive training as a
Buddhist monk where meditation, calm and humour were the elements that
buoyed his elevation into the monkhood.
Under his tutelage, his calming presence and spiritual sensibilities in a
society that venerates those elements of the human character that are
the most reflective of the divine, videos taken from within the cave
show the now-thin and weak boys in good spirits, laughing at jokes,
smiling for the camera. The days'-long consultations of experts in the
field of cave rescue has vacillated between swift extraction and the
patience it would take for the flood waters to subside.
Both options are rife with danger.
The teammates have sent letters to their parents telling them 'don't worry' AP
The passage through the flooded caverns and narrow passageways is a
three-hour excursion each way presenting dangers of negotiation
challenging those considered expert divers; to attempt to 'teach' the
thirteen stranded people who have no idea even how to swim, how to
navigate those waters in wetsuits and breathing apparatus goes beyond
any ordinary challenge. Yet to wait out the floods means the potential
that with ongoing monsoon weather the floodwaters might rise even
higher.
And now, new challenges; oxygen is running out; the ambient oxygen in
the chamber is being used at a much faster rate than previously, given
the appearance of rescuers, the medical personnel, the providers of
supplies coming and going. And for two of the smaller boys -- should the
immediate extraction option be chosen in fear of rising floodwaters and
oxygen depletion be chosen -- no wet suits small enough to fit them can
be found.
Divers may be forced by all these circumstances to make the attempt to
guide the boys to dive and manage their way through the complex route of
narrow passageways; that fraught and dangerous route whose threats are
enough to faze even expert divers with ample experience. The death of
one of the divers can be seen as a reminder of just how dangerous that
passage through the complicated cave system is for trained adults,
professional cave divers. "If we think the big rain is coming then we will have to get them out",
repeated Gov. Narongsak Osatanakorn, of the boys he claims are in good
health and have gained confidence in practising wearing diving masks and
breathing, to prepare them for the possibility of diving.
Divine intervention? Perhaps, but it is the focus of the world on the courage, skill and determination of the rescuers that have managed to rescue four of the boys from the possibility of a watery grave, brought them safely out, and prepare now to continue their rescue of the remainder of the boys and their coach, to bring this mind-gripping issue to its conclusion...
Confused and Desperate Rescue Attempts : Whistling in the Dark
"A former SEAL who volunteered to help died last night around 2am." "His job was to deliver oxygen. He did not have enough on his way back." Chiang Rai Deputy Governor Passakorn Boonyaluck
"We are no longer digging -- we will find a way that can give us access [without digging] direct to the area where the boys are."
"We are drawing our jungle trekking resources together. There are about 20 to 30 teams."
"Now
we are going to walk around that area to search every inch, [to see if]
there are chimneys or holes where we can climb down, and we may adjust
our plan." "In the previous days we were fighting with time. And now we are working against water."
"We
are draining out as much as our capacity allows. But water continues to
flow in, no matter how many holes have been blocked, water still
continues to pour in."
"If we must evacuate [the boys] out before they are ready due to the
rain ... we will do so, but it will be the very last resort to do so."
"We [are] target[ing] the water in the third chamber to reduce to the
point that no diving equipment is needed, like to the waistline, so one
can wear just life jackets and walk out."
"I confirm here again that they are in good health and they are smiling and playing around."
Chiang Rai governor Narongsak Osottanakorn
Still from video; rescuers preparing to evacuate trapped boys and coach
The threat of heavy rains continuing once again has upset original plans and forced rescuers to abandon the hope that if all else fails, the trapped boys and their coach could remain in place on their muddy, limited-space shelf above the still-surging flood waters for as long as it takes for the flooding to cease and the waters to be reduced to manageable levels. Emergency alternate preparations for extracting the twelve boys and their coach through the same cave-diving manoeuvres as the expert divers took to find them have also suffered a setback with second thought.
Plans A, B, C and D are all falling by the wayside of practical realities and the huge possibilities of matters going awry. That a chute might be found on the mountainside to provide a short route up and out seems to have gained little hope, the search fruitless. Concerns over somehow managing to guide the trapped boys taking the underwater route through the difficult and complicated tunnels amid warning that the route is dangerous not only for novices but for experts was brought to reality with the death of a former SEAL who had volunteered his services.
Like mountaineers clambering up Mount Everest, depending on supplemental oxygen to see them through the steepest, highest portion of the ascent to the summit, then finding themselves without sufficient oxygen to descend and dying from hypoxia, the volunteer diver, tasked to ferry food to the boys found himself with insufficient oxygen to see himself through the last part of his three-hour journey back out and he died in the attempt.
Some of the members of a soccer team in a section of Tham Luang cave in Khun Nam Nang Non Forest Park. Picture: GettySource:Getty Images
The massive threat to human survival represented by this rescue operation that has captured the attention and hopes of the world community, bringing offers of assistance from international experts, professional cave divers, and technology experts, hang over the tenuous choices and the progress of temporary operations to bring the twelve boys and their coach back to health after their starvation ordeal of ten days before discovery, trapped within the ten-kilometre-long cave system.
The high-pressure pumps used to drain water from the cave have barely seemed to make any difference as water continues to pour in from other areas. Thai navy SEALs remain with the boys to render first aid and teach them swimming and diving lessons hoping to keep their spirits high while their bodies slowly mend. But the boys are emaciated and it will take time before they recover strength and energy, both of which would be required to embark on a three-hour precarious diving expedition to safety. "The water is still too rough for the boys now. We are focusing on setting up ropes in each section of the cave to help them", said Tiraya Jaikaew, head of a team of volunteer rescue divers working with the Thai navy. According to Thai authorities the boys' lives are not to be endangered by reckless decision-making and the extraction will commence only when it is "100 percent safe". A promise that, under the circumstances, seems as reliable as instructing nature to shut off her water faucets.
Thai soldiers and volunteers are seen at the entrance of Tham Luang cave. Source:AFP
"Diving is not easy. For people who have never done it, it will be difficult, unlike diving in a swimming pool, because the cave's features have small channels." "If something happens midway, it could be life-threatening." Thai Interior Minister Anupong Paojindaa
"[There were] complications and problems. They [British divers] were having to swim against the currents and pull themselves along the walls." "The visibility wouldn't have been very good." Bill Whitehouse, spokesman, British Cave Rescue Council
"Any attempt to dive the boys and their coach out will not be taken lightly because there are significant technical challenges and risks to consider." "[The boys are] located in a relatively small space and this would make any potential drilling attempt as a means of rescue [as an alternate escape route] very difficult." British Cave Rescue Council statement
Hoping to discover an alternate escape route other than the one currently being considered which would include guiding the twelve boys and their coach underwater through the cave system to safety, rescuers have been looking elsewhere for promising potentials, searching the side of the mountain to determine whether passage could be found into the caverns below. Backhoes and drilling equipment were put in place but the logistics of creating a large enough shaft to enable extracting the boys would be seriously complex and time-consuming.
Not that the alternative is much less so. The problem seems insolvable for the moment. The option of leaving the group where they are, on their dry, cramped shelf space above the flood waters and delivering food and any other supplies deemed necessary while the wait continues for the waters to subside either naturally or through pumping efforts -- or until another exit can be found is also complicated, fraught with danger, and time-wasting. Alternatives are few to offer simpler solutions.
The diving option would be the fastest solution but yet perhaps the most dangerous in hopes of extracting the group safely. "Trying to take non-divers through the cave is one of the most dangerous situations possible, even if the dives are relatively easy", warned Anmar Mirza, national coordinator of the National Cave Rescue Commission in the United States. It took the two British divers who managed to reach the stranded boys and their coach three hours underwater. Hardly an adventurous option for novices.
None of the boys can swim. Picture: Thai Navy SEALs via Getty ImagesSource:Getty Images
The divers, Rick Stanton and John Volanthen, first to reach the boys and their coach within the Luang Nang Non Cave on Monday came across them almost by accident, when Volanthen was placing guide lines in an effort to close the gap toward the missing group. Running out of line, he was forced to the water's surface. And there, to his amazement, sat the boys on a ledge, watching him, illuminated by his head lamp. The drama of the search and the wearying wonder whether the boys and coach remained alive was concluded.
But left was the dilemma of how they could be rescued. The ten kilometres of narrow passageways and wide, lofty chambers under the mountainside with the rocky, muddy ground and elevation alterations represent extremely difficult terrain under any conditions. Flooded and an estimated 800 metres below the surface, around 2 kilometres into the cave, the circumstances are acutely difficult. The rainy season lasts through October, and heavy rains are forecasted to continue into the weekend.
There is the potential with heavy rains due to continue through to July ten, for water to steadily rise in the cave again, further complicating the supply missions, let alone any possible extrication at this point. But the possibility of the boys requiring diving gear to swim out of their predicament is a real one with no option but to be brought out through the complicated route their rescuers entered to find them; in murky waters impairing vision, close quarters requiring hand propulsion, and a three-hour duration.
The boys may have to be tethered to rescue divers during the operation. Picture: AFP PHOTO / Ye Aung ThuSource:AFP
Among other details being discussed is the very real possibility that alternately, the group will have to be confined where they are for weeks, even months. They've been described as healthy and well looked after, with seven members of the Thai navy SEALs present with them, including medics. In stable condition, they are being served high protein liquids. According to SEAL commander Rear Adm. Arpakorn Yookongkaew, there was no particular rush to haul them out; where they remain is safe for the time being.
"We have given the boys food, starting from easily digested and high-powered food with enough minerals", assured Mr. Arpakorn. "They are very weak and very skinny", noted cave diver Ben Reymenants, assisting in the rescue effort. He was, he said, "very surprised obviously that they are all alive and actually mentally also healthy". A doctor and a nurse have both offered to stay with the stranded group of boys for the duration of their ordeal, even if it does, in the end, take months. But the situation could change at any time and a decision made to proceed with a dive.
"[The boys would have to undergo] immediate and intensive training [if they were to stand any chance of exiting the cave alive]." "Normal
cave diving requires skills that go beyond what 99 per cent of the
world’s divers have ever seen, which is why it is so very hard to become
certified to dive in caves. The diving required in this cave, however, is not normal cave diving, and the rescuers are not normal cave divers." "The
greatest enemy to a diver is panic. Students who are accustomed to the
normal mishaps of swimming, like accidentally getting water in the mouth
or eyes, will usually have no trouble, but for people with little
swimming experience, such a minor event can lead to irrational panic." "Most of the Thai team members are nonswimmers, and the culture there
has a common belief that swimming is extremely dangerous. That starts
any training in a serious deficit." American cave diving expert
"Everything just became a lot more dangerous." "In places, it's literally a knife edge, and there's a 10,000 foot drop on either side of you." "It's such a wild place, that anything unexpected can be a problem." Ryan Agar, author, Yukon Climbing Guide
"She didn't know it was an earthquake, she thought the hanging glacier on which she was camping had moved." The helicopter will leave ASAP, but that doesn't seem to be earlier than Friday according to current forecasts." "It's different waiting for a storm when you're in the climb and you're
looking forward to continuing. But now, it's just waiting to be
evacuated." Camilo Rada, mountaineer
Martinez can be seen camped on the mountain, a few days before the earthquakes. (Lance Goodwin/Icefield Discovery Tours)
Natalia Martinez is clearly one of those driven people attracted to challenging her stamina, strength, capability and knowledge of mountaineering skills in the determination to summit the world's most difficult mountains. The Argentinian woman from Patagonia, as close to the cold and inhospitable Antarctica as anywhere else on Earth, had already summited five peaks never before climbed, in a Patagonian icefield.
She and her climbing partner, Camilo Rada, had celebrated the world's first summit of Mount Malaspina located near Mount Logan, in Canada's Yukon Territory.
And now she had set another goal for herself, a solo climb of Canada's tallest peak, Mount Logan. She is alone in her venture, though other climbers have also ventured toward the peak. Those climbers are nowhere near where Natalia Martinez is located, however, since she chose a far more difficult-to-access East Ridge route.
File photo Mount Logan
The unpredictable can always happen on a mountain. Avalanches, wicked weather conditions with storms breaking creating white-outs and high winds threatening to blow climbers off the slopes. An earthquake likely ranks among the least-expected of events to occur, but a magnitude 6.2 earthquake struck southern Yukon early Monday morning and another 6.3-magnitude tremblor hours later, with over 100 minor aftershocks following.
The immediate consequences of the earthquakes impacted the area of the mountain where Ms. Martinez had established her 3,900-metre camp. Around her avalanches tumbled, and immense glacial ice pieces came crashing down through the destabilized region. As an experienced climber she knew where best to situate her camp, and that saved her from immediate danger.
Yet because the entire area is so destabilized she can neither ascend nor descend for fear of the shield of ice and snow crumbling under her.
She had planned to give herself another six days to complete her summit. She remains in touch via satellite phone, speaking to her climbing partner, updating him. Areas around her collapsed, were buried, but fortunately her campsite remained intact. With aftershocks pummeling the area, she decided to move her camp close by to a more protected ridge she hoped would put her out of reach of any new avalanches. She has with her ten days' worth of provisions.
Parks Canada is coordinating rescues from Mount Logan, located within Kluane National Park. Normally, a rescue helicopter would have been dispatched, but a delay has occurred given that storms and high winds are battering the region. Climbers are generally asked to access areas where a rescue helicopter can land. In this instance it won't be possible. What may be required is for the helicopter to lower a rescuer to place Ms. Martinez in a harness, to be lifted back to the hovering helicopter.
'It's an area that you've always got to look over your shoulder if you're
flying around up there,' said Tom Bradley, chief pilot with Icefield
Discovery Tours. (Lance Goodwin/Icefield Discovery Tours)
"You've got weather conditions that are constantly changing, no two
flights are ever going to be the same. So it's an area
that you've always got to look over your shoulder if you're flying
around up there." "It's the world's largest non-polar icefield, so it's just a sea of
snow and ice. The mountains there are on a grand scale — they're the
largest mountains in the world, by girth." Tom Bradley, chief pilot, Icefield Discovery Tours
"I saved myself because I'd gone to pick something up from the car." "The avalanche came and I was buried by snow but I managed to get out. The car was not buried, so I stayed there and waited for rescue operators." Giampiero Parete, guest, Hotel Rigopiano, Farindola, Gran Sasso mountain range, Italy
"He [Giampiero Parete] said the hotel was submerged and to call rescue crews." "The prefect's office said it wasn't true, [that an avalanche had collapsed the alpine Hotel Rigopiano], because everything was OK at the hotel." Quintino Marcella, Giampiero Parete's employer
"I ask everyone if possible to multiply their efforts." "I ask politicians to show sobriety respecting the difficulty of the situation and the commitment of civil and military crews who are responding." Premier Paolo Gentiloni, Rome
Rescue crews use shovels to dig through the snowCredit:
ITALIAN FIRE DEPARTMENT / EPA
Rescue teams from the National Alpine rescue corps attempted to use a snowplow to reach the site of the collapsed hotel, but found their way blocked as a result of the avalanche whose weight had crushed the hotel, with trees that had been uprooted by the avalanche and rocks covering the road. The crews put on cross-country skies and took two hours to complete the seven kilometres left to reach the hotel.
Helicopters were used to drop other rescue personnel closet to the scene, once daybreak had arrived the following morning. Wednesday evening, a 300-metre snow slide had rumbled down the mountainside closest to the hotel, uprooting trees and smothering the resort, its weight causing the hotel to collapse. The area had been hit by a monstrous amount of snow, isolating residents living in central Italy, an earthquake-prone zone.
By Thursday morning when rescuers finally arrived at the site, working feverishly to dig into the packed snow littered with rocks and tree limbs covering the hotel's toppled walls, no signs of life came from within; they were met with complete silence. And an estimated thirty people were known to be trapped inside. The massive snow slide had collapsed one wing of the hotel while another had rotated off its foundation, shoved downhill.
A
rescue helicopter approaches the area of the hotel in Rigopiano,
central Italy. The operations have been hampered by difficulty in
accessing the remote hotel. Workers have been clearing a seven-kilometre
road to bring in heavier equipment but it can handle only one-way
traffic. (Gregorio Borgia)
When Giampiero Parete got through to his employer on his cellphone, he conveyed to him the situation and the plight of those within, begging for an immediate response. However, when his employer called around to police and other rescue sites, his story begged belief and there was no response until finally at one emergency number his message was viewed seriously and a rescue was mobilized, two hours after he had first attempted to raise the notice of authorities.
So that when the first rescue team finally arrived, the only life they were met with was an exhausted and fearful Mr. Parete and a hotel maintenance worker, Fabio Salzetta. Earlier, after several metres of snow had fallen, the hotel had found itself without electricity and telephone service, as happened in many central Italian towns. And then four powerful earthquakes hit on Wednesday, which might likely have triggered the avalanche.
Finally, with rescue crews working feverishly around the clock, early Friday morning there was a breakthrough. Ten people were found alive in the rubble of the hotel, and brought out to safety. Among the ten were four children. "Today is a day of hope. There’s a miracle under way", Ilario Lacchetta, mayor of the tiny town of Farindola said joyfully, Four bodies were pulled out of the wreckage. And 16 people remain unaccounted for.
The
frame from video shows Italian firefighters celebrating as they rescue a
child alive from under snow and debris of an hotel that was hit by an
avalanche on Wednesday. (Italian Firefighters)
Giampiero Parete, who had stepped out of the hotel just moments before the avalanche hit, to retrieve from his car medications for his wife, had his prayers answered in part. His 8-year-old son Gianfilippo Parete, and his wife Adriana Vranceanu, were both found alive and alert, and all were taken by helicopter to a hospital 60 kilometres from the hotel at a town named Pescara. The bad news for the family was that their 6-year-old daughter remained trapped inside.
"They had heavy clothes, they had ski caps to cover themselves. They remained away from the snow
and cold, they were always inside the structure. That’s why the
hypothermia wasn’t severe", explained Dr. Tullio
Spina, director of the hospital’s intensive care and anesthesia unit.And finally, 6-year-old Ludovica Parete was rescued hours later. She wanted her favourite cookies.
Rescuers work in front of the Rigopiano Hotel Credit:
The National Alpine Cliff and Cave Rescue Corps (CNSAS) /AP
This represents a general opinion site for its author. It also offers a space for the author to record her experiences and perceptions,both personal and public. This is rendered obvious by the content contained in the blog, but the space is here inviting me to write. And so I do.
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