Darwin Award competition continues

Four other serious contenders for the Darwin Awards, this time in South Korea. People there celebrate Lunar New Year by, among other activities, burning a large pile of dried grass to the ground. In this instance, ie in Changnyeong, about 275 km (170 miles) southeast of Seoul, they carefully chose to burn it surrounded by fields of even more dried grass. Gusty winds developed as the show was on the road, and the meager fire-proof fencing didn't do the trick. Guess what: the fire spread quickly, killing at least four on-lookers, leading to a stampede among the folks attending the event. Clever, clever.

2009 season contenders for the Darwin Awards

A group of particularly idiotic fishermen and women in the US. They entered a frozen iceshield on a lake in the USA, happily drilling holes thru the ice in order to fish thru the holes. Well, the whole iceshield broke off the shoreline, including the bunch of fishermen and women, their equipment, cars, tents, the lot. At least one of them is a serious contender for the actual award as he died as a result of exposure to the icy water. A massive rescue operation and concomitant wastage of resources took place in order to rescue those fools lest their genes would otherwise also be withdrawn from the gene pool for good.

Here is some background on the Canadian runners-up in this competition.