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Divers Re-Enter Thai Cave To Search For 13 Cut Off By Floods


cavanami
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Whilst naturally I am delighted that they found these boys alive truly I am surprised no one has mentioned the status of the foreigners helping out. I mean, this is work right, even voluntary work in Thailand needs a work permit. I'm also rather surprised that cave diving is not a reserved occupation. Still I am sure the immigration department is watching and learning in order to be ready for any future similar opportunities. Cynical, me?

 

Now as for getting em out. Is boring not an option? I thought I remembered where some miners were trapped underground that they bored a shaft and lifted them out one by one. Took a week or two, but not months.

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I taught for years without a work permit. The reason? Because the labor law said that direct employees of the Thai government and also anyone working in education was exempt. (Sort of make sense; when the Thai government hires you it is in effect giving you the right to work.) Then around the mid 1980s, somebody in the Immigration Police decided it applied to us too. :ohmy:

 

That caused a hell of a mess, since Immigration wouldn't renew our visas without a work permit, and the Labor Dept said they couldn't give us a work permit unless we already had a visa. My Farang colleague and I wasted days that we should have been teaching instead paying for taxis back and forth between our government university, Immigration, and Labor. The Labor Dept even gave us a copy (in both Thai and English) of the labor law which clearly stated we were exempt. When I showed that at Immigration, the policeman said ... "We don't care what the law says. WE SAY you have to have one." Our rector, a mom rachawong no less, finally called the Labor Dept, who politely told her they didn't know what Immigration was up to. The situation was totally ridiculous. We had two days left on our old visas and expected we'd have to make a quick trip to Penang, when Immigration got an idea. They said they would give us a two week visa, if Labor would issue us a two week WP. Labor agreed to do so, and the Immigration police openly gloated. They had forced the Labor Dept to give in! :elephant: We got our two week visas, and promptly went to the Labor Dept to pay for a WP. Once the two weeks were up, we applied again for a visa for the remainder of the year, and went to Labor for another 50 week WP that we legally didn't need. Ever since then, every teacher and direct government employee has had to shell out for a work permit. Over the years, that must add up to a fair amount of money that has gone somewhere.

 

My point is that the Immigration Police can do anything they damn well please. The GiC wanted those Farangs to helped with the rescue, therefore every requirement was waived for them. Obeying laws is only for ordinary folks like you and me. :(

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I remember every single accident I witnessed where onlookers were more concerned about the state of the car/bike than about the injured/dead laying down....so that fake pity/piety on the scale of the whole country is quite disgusting....

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This King doesn't mess around. His reaction when the police started talking about demanding work permits for the foreign cavers and divers:

 

"... HM the King has asked the government to take good care of them once the rescue operations are over and to give them a welcome treatment and to take them for a tour as if they are the King’s personal guests until they return to their home countries."

 

:)

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Mekong - I used to do some tunnelling, in sand - high attrition rate.

 

Never underwater but it can be done

 

I'm thinking oil/Gas pipe sections, wide ones built into the submerged parts in stages, sealed, pumped dry, kids stoop to go through

 

Weight even the thinnest walled 18†Diameter Carbon Steel Pipe weighs over 46 kG per Meter Length which even by my basic maths is over 46 tonnes per kilometer it would be impossible to install

 

Pipe Table http://www.pspipe.com/file_viewer.php?id=189

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