The juvenile team of footballers who had been trapped in a cave in the Chiang Rai province of Thailand have been successfully rescued. All members of the team along with the coach have been rescued from the Thai cave in the second leg of rescue operations. Thankfully, none of the members of the team have any long-lasting illnesses or problems owing to having remained trapped for days on end. It is a matter of pride for India that an Indian company which has its headquarters in Pune was involved in the successful rescue of the young team of footballers. The Indian company Kirlosker Brothers’ Limited (KBL) was recommended by the Indian embassy to the authorities in Thailand. The Thailand authorities were told that they could use the expertise of Kirlosker in ‘dewatering’ the cave for rescue work. Kirlosker sent its teams from India, Thailand and the United Kingdom to the Chiang Rai province where the rescue work was about to begin. The team of experts from KBL have stayed there from July 5 and provided “technical know-how and advice on dewatering and pumps involved in the rescue operation,” said the KBL release.
Kirlosker had also offered to provide four high capacity Autoprime dewatering pumps, which were kept ready at Kirloskarvadi plant in Maharashtra to be airlifted to the Thai cave. This incident has raised the flag of the country and has shown that the expertise and technical know-how possessed by Indian companies is in fact second to none. KBL managed to provide solutions to problems in places where engineers from Elon Musk’s company SpaceX and Boeing were sent to help in the rescue. The offer of Elon Musk to use a tiny submarine which could be used as rescue pods had been rejected by the authorities in Thailand which had cited them as unsafe.
KBL succeeded in giving rescuers the extra time needed to continue their rescue operation by keeping the trapped team in the Thai cave alive. They stopped the cave from flooding despite the continuous rains which have lashed the Chiang Rai province. All members of the Wild Boars team have been successfully rescued as of now, the coach included. This brings to an end the arduous search and rescue task which had gone on for more than 18 days. The twelve member team with their coach were rescued in two batches from the Tham Luang caves were they had gotten trapped owing to heavy rains caused flooding. The rescued children and the coach are being kept in quarantine to check their medical conditions and illness, following which they will be allowed to meet their family and go back to their homes. All the people involved in the rescue work need to be applauded sincerely along with the young guys as well for not losing hope in trying times. All is well that ends well.