Thai and Chinese rescue teams have been racing against time to extract the first of the three workers from a collapsed train tunnel in Nakhon Ratchasima. There remains only about one metre of rubble between them.
Krirkseksan Wasasiri, chief of the Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) team, from the Department of Public Disaster Prevention and Mitigation, said today that the life sign indicator detected signs of life in three places inside the collapsed tunnel, at 3.30pm and 5.30pm yesterday.
He said the rescue team is now about a metre from one of the three trapped workers, believed to be a Myanmar national trapped inside a truck buried under the rubble.
The three people, one Myanmar and two Chinese nationals, have been trapped inside the tunnel since last Saturday, when a section of the ceiling of the tunnel collapsed.
A medical team is on standby near the tunnel, which is part of the Thai-Chinese high-speed train project in Pak Chong district, Nakhon Ratchasima. When the first victim is extracted, he will be immediately assessed by the medical team. If he is only suffering from minor injuries, he will be taken to Pak Chong Hospital, which will take about 45 minutes by an ambulance.
If, however, he has sustained a serious injury, he will be sent to Sikhio Hospital, which take about 25 minutes. Any patient in a critical condition will be immediately flown by a helicopter to Maharat Nakhon Ratchasima Hospital.
