Authorities have contacted the Thai firm that saved kids from a flooded cave in 2018 as the search for 40 men stranded in an unfinished tunnel in Uttarakhand entered its fifth day of operation.
The Uttarakhand government’s department of public relations released a statement stating that officials had “contacted the Thai company which rescued the children trapped in the cave.”
The Thai company had in that long and intense operation rescued 12 boys from a junior football team and their coach who had been stuck in the Tham Luang cave complex for more than two weeks.
On June 23, 2018, during a day trip to the cave complex, 12 young football players and their coach were caught in subterranean waterways caused by heavy rain in the Tham Luang cave complex in northern Thailand. They were thought to be dead, before two British cave divers navigated a maze of tiny passageways and waterways and discovered them on July 2, trapped in a deep chamber four kilometers (2.5 miles) from the entrance.
Three IAF transport planes airlifted a heavy drilling machine from Delhi on Wednesday to replace the “failed” machinery that had been used to clear a path for 40 workers who were trapped in an under-construction tunnel that had collapsed three days prior, according to officials.
While workers at the site expressed concerns about the status of the multi-agency rescue operations, the “American auger” machine that had partially landed at the Chinyalisaur airport, more than 30 kilometers from the tunnel on the Char Dham route, was being put into service.
At the entrance of the tunnel on the Brahmakhal-Yamunotri National Highway, labourers demonstrated by chanting slogans against the “slow” pace of the rescue effort for their coworkers who had been trapped inside for four days.