Thailand Cave Rescue: India’s ‘crucial’ role in safe evacuation of ‘Wild Boars’

Thailand on Tuesday successfully evacuated 12 young football players and their coach trapped in flooded Tham Luang caves for 18 days. The high-risk mission could be accomplished with the help of as many as 90 expert cave divers from seven countries including the UK, the USA and Australia.

India also played a crucial role in the world’s toughest rescue mission by providing technical support in “dewatering” the flooded caves where the boys and their coach were trapped.

Since increased water level in the caves was the biggest challenge in the rescue mission, Indian Embassy recommended Thai authorities to use Pune-headquartered Kirloskar Brothers' Limited's (KBL) expertise.

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The company had sent experts from its offices in India, Thailand and the United Kingdom who helped the rescuers by offering "technical know-how and advice on dewatering and pumps involved in the rescue operation."

The company had kept ready four high capacity Autoprime dewatering pumps at its plant in Maharashtra. The pumps were to be airlifted to Thailand for the rescue mission.

On Tuesday, rescuers extracted the remaining five – 4 boys and their coach – safely from the caves after three days of the treacherous mission. Earlier, eight members of the soccer team were brought out in the first and second phase of the operation on July 8 and 9, respectively.