Rescue Dogs

After the previous post on the disastrous 9.0 earthquake in Japan this weekend, I found lots of photos of search and rescue teams with dogs. Again, the core Central Asian states are seriously underrepresented - please point me in the right direction if you are in the know. Above, a Japanese dog team is looking for survivors among the destruction at the tsunami-stricken northeast coast. You can see how big ships have been thrown ashore by the mighty waves. Photo by Kazuki Wakasugi. Source: Yomiuri Shimbun

A South Korean rescue dog team arrives in Japan, as seen in the previous post. Source: Reuters

An inhabitant of the town Kesennuma, which suffered terribly under the tsunami, carries his little sheltie. Source: Der Spiegel

Indonesia is another island nation frequently experiencing earthquakes. This photo is from Sumatra 2009. A man is taking several dogs out for a walk in the partly-destroyed city.

Search and rescue dogs arrived in Sumatra from all over the world.

Taiwanese rescue workers with a search and rescue dog assisted with the recovery of survivors in Christchurch, New Zealand, earlier this year.

The Himalaya Rescue Dog Squad Nepal is the first-ever of its kind in the country. The squad's tasks include rescue operations at high altitudes and in deep jungles, after avalanches, floods, and serious traffic accidents. Since the project is so new and the working conditions are very difficult, there's a fundraising page with more information. The people involved in the project also run a caste-free school.

Ilya Zaslavski and search and rescue dog Perets arrived in Haiti 2010 from Russia. The Haiti earthquake struck a densely populated region with weak infrastructure, and recovery has been very difficult. The earthquake could inflict lasting damage on an already disadvantaged society, so we shouldn't forget about Haiti. The Red Cross has more information.

Speaking of Russia, I found a cute thread about rescue dog training in Russia by volunteers. If your dog likes to search for things and needs an interesting hobby, this could be a nice idea. Many of the more independent-minded breeds that tend to do naughty things when bored (such as shibas and terriers in the thread) are well suited for this kind of complex task.

Dogs that were injured in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake are being treated at a private shelter in Chengdu.

Rescue dog training in China: The People's Liberation Army tends towards rather showy exercises...

Jumping through fiery hoops... and the handler's arms.

Cirayliq rock climbers

I used to do some rock climbing a while ago. I haven't officially quit, but I just haven't done it for a long time now, since I lost my climbing partner and also it's a bit expensive when you live in the city.



Anyway, rock climbing is a sport for which teenagers are the most suited. One of the greatest, albeit aging, stars of rock climbing today is 18-year old David Lama. His parents met in Nepal, where his dad worked as a sherpa and his Austrian mum was mountaineering. They fell in love, and settled in his mum's home country, where they continued to trek on mountains together. When David was born, they soon noticed that he liked climbing around on rocks more than trekking, so they put him in a rock climbing class at the tender age of six.

The rest is, as they say, history. Here David does some tricky bouldering at a competition in Birmingham, 2007:

Both photos in this post are by Rainer Eder. The first one is from David Lama's official website, and the second one is from an interview at Climb and More.

Furthermore, here is a clip from Malaysia (in German and English) - David Lama and a few others among today's top ten rock climbers were invited to the country to explore the rock formations and build new routes (for future rock climbing tourists). Probably for some sexist reason there is hardly any focus at all on the girls, but at least the boys are cute.

Someone who has been around a little bit longer is Serik Kazbekov, 38. He was born in Alma-Ata, but is nowadays competing for Ukraine.



Here is a gallery of photos with Kazbekov (and his daughter with insanely long hair) climbing in the Crimea, by Anna Piunova. Here is his profile at Risk Online.



Serik Kazbekov actually got into rock climbing because of fellow Alma-Ata local Salavat Rakhmetov, who nowadays climbs for Russia. This "ancient" 41 year old family father is still among the world's top climbers! Salavat was introduced to rock climbing by his older brother Kairat, after which he, in his own words, "stopped running 'horizontally' and started running 'vertically' instead". Up until then he had been a professional in light athletics.

In the following video he wins 1st place in bouldering in the rock climbing world championships in Munich 2005.