A remotely-controlled robot will be used to help in the search for and rescue of a Burmese and two Chinese workers trapped inside a collapsed train tunnel in Pak Chong district of Thailand’s north-eastern province of Nakhon Ratchasima since Sunday.
The robot is being used because rubble continues to fall from the failing ceiling of the tunnel, which jeopardises the safety of the urban search and rescue team (USAR) of the Department of Public Disaster Prevention and Mitigation.
A USAR official said that, at about midnight last night, the search team detected signs of life again, near the site where they were earlier found by a life signs detector. A steel pipe, with a diameter of 1.2m, was inserted through the rubble into the tunnel, until it reached what appeared to be a truck, which was also trapped inside.
An excavator is also trapped, according to an engineer working for the Thai-Chinese high-speed train project, of which the damaged tunnel is a part.
Rubble has started to fall from the ceiling of the tunnel again, so the USAR team have been forced to withdraw for now.
