r/news May 27 '23

Indian official drops phone while taking a selfie, drains dam to get it back

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-27/indian-official-drains-dam-to-find-lost-phone/102401292
917 Upvotes

297

u/Guyute-TN May 27 '23

Dude. What did you have saved on that phone?

148

u/PhenomenalxMoto May 27 '23

Bitcoin wallet he forgot to write down his seed phrase šŸ˜‚

87

u/AdNormal5424 May 28 '23

Im betting on either a lot of cash or a lot of corruption

51

u/Q_OANN May 28 '23

Figured corruption, CP.

12

u/asdf9asdf9 May 28 '23

Has to be cash. Any phone left in water long enough will destroy other evidence anyway.

3

u/Zxphenomenalxz May 28 '23

Why not both?

2

u/sirdiamondium May 28 '23

Porque no los dos

145

u/frodosdream May 27 '23

Guess we're lucky he didn't drop his phone in the ocean.

13

u/Antony-007 May 28 '23

Would have fixed rising ocean levels problem

77

u/[deleted] May 28 '23

Bro just making sure no one ever sees that browser history.

216

u/Silver_Foxx May 27 '23

Big "making whole warship turn to avoid sun in my eyes" energy, nice.

48

u/Shandd May 28 '23

Legit one of my favorite stories of all time

8

u/runninhillbilly May 28 '23

I came here immediately thinking of that story and I’m pleased to see I am not the only one

37

u/keptman77 May 28 '23

Genuinely curious as to what would be retrievable from a phone after a few days in the water. My friend just dropped her phone on a sidewalk, it broke, and she got nothing from the phone that wasnt on a cloud backup.

23

u/Snooty_Cutie May 28 '23

According to the article, the phone was recovered but unusable. Basically, he drained 2million liters of water for a phone that no longer works. šŸ¤¦ā€ā™€ļø

6

u/zetswei May 28 '23

A lot can be recovered from dead electronics but it is very expensive

47

u/UsedToBsmart May 27 '23

Now he needs to fill it with rice and drop the phone back in.

59

u/FuckRulez May 28 '23

Privileged and entitled

37

u/kidoblivious1 May 28 '23

They should cut off his water for a year or two

34

u/HachimansGhost May 28 '23

Should I send some guys down there with scuba gear to retrieve it? No, I shall drain the entire dam so I can go down and get it myself.

29

u/MGD109 May 28 '23

Oh no he tried that. They couldn't find it, so then he ordered it drained.

19

u/mynameisalso May 28 '23

In the article it says they used divers, but they couldn't find it.

19

u/Uncle_Redleg May 28 '23

Couldn’t risk anyone else finding what was on that phone I guess.

11

u/RatRob May 28 '23 edited May 28 '23

Looking at the size of that area you could have magnet fished it out in like twenty minutes.

24

u/Mastr_Blastr May 28 '23

Old school lazy, brought to you by the US Navy

I was once on a US military ship, having breakfast in the wardroom (officers lounge) when the Operations Officer (OPS) walks in. This guy was the definition of NOT a morning person; he's still half asleep, bleary eyed... basically a zombie with a bagel. He sits down across from me to eat his bagel and is just barely conscious. My back is to the outboard side of the ship, and the morning sun is blazing in one of the portholes putting a big bright-ass circle of light right on his barely conscious face. He's squinting and chewing and basically just remembering how to be alive for today. It's painful to watch.

But then zombie-OPS stops chewing, slowly picks up the phone, and dials the bridge. In his well-known I'm-still-totally-asleep voice, he says "heeeey. It's OPS. Could you... shift our barpat... yeah, one six five. Thanks." And puts the phone down. And then he just sits there. Squinting. Waiting.

And then, ever so slowly, I realize that that big blazing spot of sun has begun to slide off the zombie's face and onto the wall behind him. After a moment it clears his face and he blinks slowly a few times and the brilliant beauty of what I've just witnessed begins to overwhelm me. By ordering the bridge to adjust the ship's back-and-forth patrol by about 15 degrees, he's changed our course just enough to reposition the sun off of his face. He's literally just redirected thousands of tons of steel and hundreds of people so that he could get the sun out of his eyes while he eats his bagel. I am in awe.

He slowly picks up his bagel and for a moment I'm terrified at the thought that his own genius may escape him, that he may never appreciate the epic brilliance of his laziness (since he's not going to wake up for another hour). But between his next bites he pauses, looks at me, and gives me the faintest, sly grin, before returning to gnaw slowly on his zombie bagel.

8

u/BMP353 May 28 '23

Out-fucking-standing…the only thing that could make this better is if he somehow blared the chorus of ā€œI’m Proud to Be and Americanā€ as the sun left his face.

5

u/Economist-Future May 28 '23

Will that phone even work after getting wet?

9

u/ZZZ-Top May 28 '23

Nah it's pretty much fucked after a hour

31

u/mynameisalso May 28 '23

"dam" is a bit much.

Per the article it is 2 million liters.

A rough estimate for an "Olympic pool" is 2.5 million.

So he drained a large pool.

Guy is an idiot, and entitled, but not like a cartoon villain.

61

u/ThirteenSeas May 28 '23

"dam" is a bit much.

It doesn't have to be a certain size to be considered a dam. It's literally called the Kherkatta Dam.

5

u/BMP353 May 28 '23

Hah. Seriously. I can make Sam for gravy in my mashed potatoes.

1

u/BMP353 May 31 '23

Hah. Wtf was I tying to say and who the fuck upvotes this lol? Oh yeah. I can make a DAM for gravy in my mashed potatoes. JFC.

-3

u/mynameisalso May 28 '23

My point was they didn't drain lake Meade.

6

u/[deleted] May 27 '23

[deleted]

55

u/pinkeroo67 May 27 '23

........he arranged for two powerful pumps to be run for three days to empty out 2 million litres of water, enough to irrigate 600 hectares of farmland.

He only stopped when an official from the irrigation and water resource department visited the site after a complaint.

-42

u/sjfiuauqadfj May 28 '23

in context, thats not actually that much water, especially if that water is going to be used for a crop like rice

2 million liters = 1.6 acre feet of water and 1 acre of rice needs 5 acre feet of water a year

30

u/ITookTrinkets May 28 '23

In context, the planet is dying and this happened in a country already plagued with drought, and this happened for some guy’s cell phone

-9

u/sjfiuauqadfj May 28 '23

yea but its still not that much water for a one off event. im not saying he was right to drain the dam, im just saying its really not that much water in the ag world lol

2

u/mlc885 May 29 '23

Was it a fully waterproof phone?

2

u/vampirevlord May 30 '23

Data was not recoverable after having been under water for 3 days.

2

u/TeutonicTwit May 29 '23

Ever hear of scuba gear?

0

u/Neither-Idea-9286 May 28 '23

Wouldn’t it have been easier to hire some divers?

3

u/bandit69 May 28 '23

The article states that he hired local divers, but they failed to find his phone.

2

u/Neither-Idea-9286 May 29 '23

My bad, I just skimmed the article. Thanks

0

u/VPFrancisson May 28 '23

Lol the nuclear code is cold stored in that phone i guess

0

u/WarWizard910 May 29 '23

Did he consider that draining the dam might also take the phone with it?

1

u/AdopeyIllustrator May 29 '23

I bet it was on the bottom. They could have just looked there.