About Australian Cave Rescue Commission
ACRC is a commission of Caves Australia (Australian Speleological Federation) which represents about a thousand cavers and 26 clubs across Australia, and is a member of the UIS.
The ACRC is charged with “promoting preparedness for cave rescue in Australia”. It has a volunteer co-ordinator and a team of volunteers which support the regional ACRC co-ordinators across Australia. It provides some funding and support for equipment and training for volunteer caver-rescuers and promotes good relationships between those caver-rescuers and various emergency services.
It has a very good relationship with CaveSAR New Zealand and is positive about building relationships with other caving nations, especially in the region.
About Australian Cave Rescue
Australia is a federation of states, with different emergency services in each state. Cave rescue is the responsibility of the police in each state, but it is a very rare event, and volunteer caver-rescuers are much more skilled and practised in the niche needs of cave rescue. There are about 250 cavers who train regularly in cave-rescue, spread across eight teams.
Cavers in need of rescue are encouraged to contact their local cave rescue team as well as calling emergency services via 000 if lives are at risk.
Most populated caving regions have a cave rescue team but there are large parts of Australia where population is scarce and rescue services will be a long time responding. Expeditions to these areas should try to be as self-sufficient as possible for initial response to an incident.
Cave and karst
Australia is a big country, and has the world’s largest individual karst landscape – the Nullarbor. It also has more than 70 recognised cave areas. There’s a cave with a surveyed length of greater than 120km but our deepest is only about 400m. Climates range from tropical rainforest, through savanna and desert to alpine. Internal cave temperatures range from 6 to 30 C.
Insurance
For a call to 000, rescue costs for professional services are covered by the respective government, but volunteers will likely cover their own expenses.
Contacts
E-mail: asf.cave.rescue.commission@gmail.com
Web: https://www.caverescue.org.au/
SOCIAL NETWORKS:
Facebook:
As below, for other states: via the national ACRC
https://www.facebook.com/nswcaverescue
https://www.facebook.com/p/Cave-Rescue-Victoria-Inc-61566450157560/