3 workers trapped in a tunnel in Thailand were found dead

Three foreign workers trapped in a collapsed railway tunnel have died despite rescue efforts that lasted more than five days.

See: Thailand warns of floods that have already killed 22

The men, two from China and one from Myanmar, were still alive as of Thursday, August 29.

They were trapped when part of the tunnel they were building collapsed on Saturday, August 24, in Pak Chong district, about 200 km northeast of the capital Bangkok.

On Friday, authorities announced that the three people had died, with initial investigations suggesting it was due to a lack of oxygen.

The tunnel, which was under construction and part of the Thailand-China high-speed railway project, collapsed following a landslide around 11:40 p.m. local time on Saturday.

Rescuers, including State Railways of Thailand (SRT) officials and a Chinese disaster response team, have been working around the clock for the past week in hopes of saving the victims.

They attempted to pump oxygen into the tunnel to keep the workers alive, but it is unclear whether the tubes they used reached the workers.

On Thursday, rescuers found the body of a Burmese truck driver buried under a pile of earth and stones.

The bodies of the two Chinese workers, a supervisor and an excavator operator, were found around 6 a.m. local time on Friday, SRT said.

The three bodies were found about 25 meters from where the tunnel collapsed, authorities said.

Rescuers in the collapsed tunnel. Photo: Thai Railways.

Local reports say rescuers managed to get within a meter of one of the men on Wednesday.

On the same day, they reportedly heard faint sounds that they thought were coming from men.

Scanners and sniffer dogs had also detected vital signs, giving hope that the workers were still alive.

However, rescue efforts progressed slowly due to the ongoing landslide, with falling earth continuously blocking the holes dug by rescuers to go deeper into the tunnel.

Anutin Charnvirakul, Thailand's acting interior minister, said rescuers were hampered by "engineering limitations."

They had to be careful that their digging did not cause other parts of the tunnel to collapse, he said, adding that rescuers had to build 3-meter-high support structures for their own safety.

"Nobody wanted this incident to happen," he said at a news conference Friday.

"We not only tried to save the lives of the victims, we also had to ensure the safety of rescuers and workers," he added.

The bodies of the three men were removed from the tunnel on Friday.

Thai police have launched an investigation into the incident, while construction work around the tunnel has been suspended for the time being.

See also:

Thailand: Body of 13th victim of Phuket mudslides found

Source: BBC