A stowaway is a person who
secretly boards a vehicle, such as an aircraft, bus, ship, cargo truck or
train, to travel without paying and without being detected.Smuggling is the
illegal transportation of objects (and sometimes people too !) across varied
places especially borders of a State (Country). There are various motives,
almost all illegal and banned in civil society. According to IMO, the
Convention on Facilitation of International Maritime Traffic, 1965, as amended,
define stowaway as "A person who is secreted on a ship, or in cargo which
is subsequently loaded on the ship, without the consent of the shipowner or the
Master or any other responsible person and who is detected on board the ship
after it has departed from a port, or in the cargo while unloading it in the
port of arrival, and is reported as a stowaway by the master to the appropriate
authorities".
How long and where
they would hide gets redefined from time to time – and I had posted recently on
the news of stowaway falling to death
from jet nearer Heathrow after 11 hour long journey from South Africa – and yet
another one surviving such long arduous hazardous journey! It is believed the
two men sneaked on to flight BA0054 before it set off from Johannesburg airport
on Wednesday evening. The man who died is then thought to have hidden in the
wheel recess during the airliner's 11-hour five-minute overnight flight to
London. .
A study made in 2012 found
at least 76 per cent of so-called 'wheel-well stowaways' die during their
attempt. Those that do survive tend to
be on short-haul flights which stay at relatively low altitudes. Many of those
who die attempting wheel-well stowaways freeze to death during the flight
before dropping to the ground.
A cat has nine lives is a common
saying….it is stated that domestic cats fall from any height with a remarkable
survival rate. A study reveals that a
typical domestic cat’s terminal velocity is sufficiently low, around 60 mph,
that they can absorb the shock of the landing.
This isn’t to say they will absorb the shock without injury; simply that
they are more likely to survive the fall than not.Specifically, according to a
study done by the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, 132
cats falling from an average of 5.5 stories and as high as 32 stories, the
latter of which is more than enough for them to reach their terminal velocity, have
a survival rate of about 90%, assuming they are brought in to treat their
various injuries that may occur because of the impact with the ground.
Sometime back, Daily Mail
reported that a homesick cat used up at
least one of its nine lives after surviving for six weeks stuck inside a
chimney.The moggy, named Chloe, endured a 20ft plunge before going weeks
without food and water behind the sealed up fireplace.The stricken pet had been
trying to get back into her home while her owners Marianne and Patrick Wood
were on holiday.She was pulled, barely alive from the shaft, six weeks later
when the couple returned home and heard her cries coming through the walls.
The couple had arranged with
a neighbour to look after Chloe in their absence, feeding her twice a day and
letting her inside at night.But the homesick cat decided to try and break in to
the house. Their neighbours spent a week searching for Chloe but to no avail.
Mrs Wood even emailed them a photo of the seven-year-old cat from 10,000 miles
away to be used on 'missing' posters.Then the day after the couple returned
home they heard a pathetic meowing from behind the sealed up fireplace in an
upstairs bedroom. They used a knife to
cut a hole through the sealant and found a skeletal-looking Chloe barely alive.
The cat was rushed to a Vet, put on a drip and fed small amounts of food to
help her build her strength up and returned home.
MailOnline of 22nd
June reports of another cat hiding in a shipping container and surviving for 3
weeks without food or water during 2,200-mile journey from Cyprus to Britain. It was discovered in a British warehouse after
surviving a three-week journey in a shipping container without any food or
water. The stowaway tabby-and-white cat, who has since been dubbed Miss Pickford,
became trapped after wandering into the crate as it was being loaded in the
port of Limassol, Cyprus, in February.It remained in the sealed container as
the vessel sailed to Felixstowe, Suffolk - stopping off in Haifa, Israel,
Antwerp, Belgium, Bremerhaven, Germany and Rotterdam, the Netherlands on the
way.
The animal was discovered by
staff from Pickfords, a removal and storage company, after they heard its meows
as they unpacked the container at a warehouse in Kempston, Bedfordshire in
March.The cat, who had made a bed for itself in one of the boxes, is believed
to have survived by licking condensation from the walls. The team at Pickfords
phoned the local Bedford Trading Standards organisation who caught the cat and
took it to Bayton Lodge Quarantine Kennels and Cattery in Bedworth,
Warwickshire.
Though it arrived in a bad
condition, extremely thin, very dehydrated – it has made a miraculous recovery
during her quarantine period, and was given flea and worm treatment, rabies
vaccination and a microchip.The four-year-old feline is now being cared for at
Cats Protection's Birmingham Adoption Centre and is looking for a new home. The manager at the centre is quoted as saying
- 'Miss Pickford is a very special cat
to have survived such a gruelling ordeal.
With regards – S.
Sampathkumar
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