CHIANG RAI: Navy Seal scuba divers in flooded Tham Luang cavern were on Monday afternoon within 500 metres of a chamber including a raised rock mound, nicknamed “Pattaya Beach” by cavers, which might have offered a sanctuary to 12 young boys and their football coach caught in flooded Tham Luang cavern for more than a week when heavy rains flooded it, obstructing the escape.
Development has actually been slowed as scuba divers require to broaden parts of a narrow 100 metre stretch– with sharp bends– that they were not able to travel through without their air cylinders ending up being jammed.
Chiang Rai guv Narongsak Osotthanakorn previously stated rescuers had actually handled to reach the “Sam Yak” three-way junction – and now the most vital area of the dirty underground maze lies ahead.
” The Seal system last night reached the T-junction and today they will push ahead to the left, however one challenge we have actually discovered is a really little hole which we require to broaden so that individuals can go through,” the guv informed press reporters on Monday.
” This is today’s focus. The passage needs to be permeated. It is extremely narrow … They have actually not yet reached ‘the (Pattaya) beach’,” Mr Narongsak stated.
Turning left from Sam Yak, the passage rises, drops steeply and after that flexes to the left – and is not yet available to foreign scuba divers and their devices, the guv stated.
‘ Pattaya Beach’ has to do with 2 kilometres from the scuba divers’ forward command centre in the stretching cavern network’s 3rd chamber– an overall of approximately 5 kilometres from the primary entryway of the collapse the Tham Luang Khun Nam Nang Nong forest park in Thailand’s northern most district of Mae Sai.
Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwon stated in Bangkok that rescuers intended to reach ‘Pattaya Beach’ Monday– however the strong water present in the narrow passage provides a significant challenge.
Full-scale efforts continued to drain pipes water from the cavern and avoid fresh water from streaming into it, even more raising the water level.
Above the cavern, authorities and volunteers were looking for shafts that may supply a back entrance into the cavern.
” We are checking out 11 prospective shafts today. The inmost one is 200 metres. If it decreases through, we will be extremely fortunate,” the Chiang Rai guv stated.
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