In the blink of an eye, the rescue operation had stretched to forty grueling hours.
Thousands of automated excavators worked frantically, carving out a massive, cone-shaped crater 1.3 kilometers in diameter and a staggering 500 meters deep! They had literally moved mountains of earth to reach the trapped survivors.
To prevent secondary cave-ins, the engineering teams utilized every trick in the book. Heavy-lift dropships continuously transported the excavated rock and sand far away from the site. Meanwhile, a steady supply of rapid-setting industrial polymer cement was flown in and sprayed directly onto the exposed crater walls, reinforcing the soil and preventing structural collapse.
Since automated AI couldn't handle the delicate nuances of such a massive, high-stakes dig, thousands of human operators stepped in to remote-control the machinery. The Ark's Central Command was urgently expanded to accommodate a crisis response team of 5,000 personnel!
