Mae Sai district’s most famous cave, Tham Luang-Khun Nam Nang Non, is currently facing its worst flooding in 13 years, after the mountain range was lashed by torrential rain, measured at 263mm yesterday alone.
British cave explorer Vernon Unsworth, who has been living in Mae Sai district with his Thai wife for more than a decade, inspected the cave today.
From his experience of exploring the cave over the past six years, he said that the water rushing out of the cave’s entrance is stronger than a waterfall, indicating that all the chambers in the cave are now flooded, noting that it is fortunate that no one was in the cave, because it is closed to all visitors until the end of the month.
Petcharat Suksamran, a Tham Luang-Khun Nam Nang Non National Park official, said that the situation at the cave is critical, adding that a strong current of reddish water is rushing out of the entrance non-stop.
Tham Luang attracted worldwide attention in June and July 2018, when an international search and rescue operation was launched to save 12 members of a football team and their coach trapped in the flooded cave for over a fortnight. It was July 10th when all of them were safely extracted from the cave.
Meanwhile, the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation, has issued an advisory for tourists visiting national parks during the rainy season, advising them to check weather forecasts, research information about the parks to visit, be aware of mountainous routes for their safety, immediately head for higher ground if they are in a stream when water conditions change and to comply strictly with the rules of the national parks.
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