From the entrance, it looks almost like a normal cave, with a rocky overhang and leaves scattered around the entrance. The only giveaway is a warning sign adorned with deathly skulls and crossbones saying: 'Danger! No trespassing beyond this point.'
This is Costa Rica's Cave of Death – or 'Cueva de la Muerte' in the local Spanish – located at the Recreo Verde tourist complex in the district of Venecia. Measuring 6.5 feet deep and nearly 10 feet long (2 meters by 3 meters), it instantly kills any creature that enters it.
It's full of CO2. Who'd want to go in? Step forward the TikTok Generation:
However, this isn't deterring brave explorers from making the visit to the site in the hunt for social media videos.
*sighs*
If I were the Lord High Poobah and Grand Dictator of the UK (pronouns High Poobah) I'd immediately reduce the safety signage strewn across our environment like glitter after a children's party.
ReplyDeleteWarnings of temporary road works are fine. But other than legally mandated signs and directional signposts all the hectoring nanny state stuff can go. If people are too self centred to want to swim in quarries or canals, let them explore the consequences of their adventure. If people want to stand too close to the edge of a cliff, goodbye. Signs welcoming careful drivers can go.
A few years ago an approach to a village near me had (as far as I can recall) 3 countdown markers to a speed limit, the speed limit, a village welcome sign, a warning of a mini roundabout, and a waring about speed bumps - on both sides of the road. A forest of signs, it looked awful. More recently I noticed that the signage had been markedly reduced, so it can be done.
Back in the early 1980s, a dam was under construction near Hognaston in Derbyshire (the Carsington Dam). The materials it was constructed with generated a lot of carbon dioxide, which accumulated in an inspection sump. Two men working in that sump were overcome, as also were two men who went down to rescue them. All four died. The sump was smaller than the cave you mention.
ReplyDeleteHealth and safety legislation was in its infancy then, and if I remember correctly, the firm that designed the death trap were fined the maximum for the time of £2000. The dam was badly designed and collapsed, but that is another story.
I remember reading Richard Dawkins on the subject of eugenics listing two reasons commonly stated for being against it. The first was that it is immoral, no argument with that. The second was that it wouldn't work which was obviously incorrect. If some mad scientist wanted to breed humans with specific characteristics it could be done just as effectively as it is with farm animals or dogs. If Tic Tok challenges are removing idiots from the gene pool before they get a chance to breed, the collective intelligence of humanity as a whole will surely go up.
ReplyDeleteI'm not seeing a downside to be honest.
ReplyDelete"I'd immediately reduce the safety signage strewn across our environment like glitter after a children's party."
ReplyDeleteAnd let Darwin sort it out?
"Health and safety legislation was in its infancy then..."
Ah, the good old days! Holds of ships, I recall, are similarly potential deathtraps,.
"If Tic Tok challenges are removing idiots from the gene pool before they get a chance to breed, the collective intelligence of humanity as a whole will surely go up."
Let's hope so, since it's sorely needed.
"I'm not seeing a downside to be honest."
No, me neither.