Foreign divers safe after vehicle plunges into canal
NAKHON SI THAMMARAT: Two foreign divers relying on a GPS to guide them back to Phuket took an unplanned plunge when a flash flood swept their vehicle off a back road in Thung Yai district and into a canal on Thursday afternoon.
Both men were identified as diving instructors, one of whom took part in last month’s rescue of 12 young footballers and their coach from the flooded Tham Luang cave complex in Chiang Rai, police said yesterday.
They were trapped in their vehicle when fast-flowing forest run-off washed it off the road and into the rain-swollen Sipun canal near Nong Wa village in tambon Kulae, Pol Capt Sutham Jermkhwan, a duty officer at Thung Yai police station, said. They scrambled out of the cab and onto the tray as the water level rose up to the windows.
It was some hours before their plight was noticed by locals and police were alerted to the scene.
About 100 rescue workers, soldiers and local residents rushed to help and laboured for about two hours to pull them and their vehicle, a four-door pickup truck with Bangkok licence plates, from the canal.
The pair were named in media reports as Seetoh Yiyu, a Singaporean national, 37, and a Danish national identified only as Claus, 45. Diving gear was found in their vehicle.
Police said the two men were returning from teaching at a cave diving course in tambon Krungyan of Thung Yai district and were on their way to Phuket. They were using a GPS to guide them. It directed them to a secondary road, by-passing another flooded road when they were hit by the forest run-off.
The two men thanked everyone for helping them, explaining that they did not know the way to Phuket and had to rely on the vehicle’s GPS. They were not aware there was also forest run-off flooding that road.
Their vehicle was washed into the canal near a rubber plantation. They managed to get out of the cab and stood on the back with their gear, barely above the floodwater, for several hours before local residents saw them and called the police for help.