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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Michael M who wrote (31986)	10/11/2001 5:06:15 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 82486

Another disaster response... Vostok station, a Russian and formerly Soviet station in Antarctica is known as the coldest place in the world. It has recorded temperatures of below -125. One winter they had a fire and lost heat and electricity. One person died as he was trying to get back through the smoke and darkness (with no emergency lights) after shutting off machinery or generators that would possibly have caused more fire. They sat there all winter. Their only heat derived from burning diesel or alcohol or anything flammable in barrels. Inside of the station the temperature was as cold as 40 below, atleast along the outside edges. Also the station got very smoky and the some unburned remnants of fuel in the air got spread around or absorbed in to clothes. There was a risk of a fire killing everyone. The Soviets where unable to rescue the people in the station during the winter. The Americans could have gotten them out of there but it would have taken a few days (in other words far to long to respond to a fire). The people at the station were ordered not to ask for help or even tell the Americans about their situation. They where communicated with the Americans regularly to exchange weather information, but they were ordered to pretend that everything was normal during these radio conversations. Amazingly only the one person mentioned above died. When Spring came they where rescued. But can you imagine day after day acting like everything is normal when talking over the radio to the only people who could rescue you, while freezing your butt off in the coldest place in the world, and being at risk for a sudden disastrous fire all because some government official on the other side of the world thinks asking the Americans for help would be embarrassing? I guess the people at the station feared the KGB (the political officer and any possible undercover KGB observers). Still the idea is mind boggling... Tim