Water level suddenly rises: while their guide drowns, tourists manage to escape from a flooded cave

Deux touristes ont légèrement été blessées au niveau des jambes. Illustration image Envato Elements – ADDICTIVE_STOCK

Ce mardi 6 août 2024, l’excursion d’une vingtaine de touristes dans la grotte de Nam Talu en Thaïlande a viré au drame. Alors que l’eau montait dangereusement, leur guide a été emporté.

Nam Talu Cave, located near Rajjaprabha Dam in Phanom district, is closed to the public from June to November each year due to flooding during the rainy season, the Bangkok Post reported.

However, two tour guides defied the ban by taking a group of 22 foreign tourists to visit the 600-meter-long, 30-meter-wide cave on Tuesday, August 6.

The guide was swept away by the waters

As the holidaymakers were finishing their excursion and were leaving the cave, around 7:30 p.m., the water level suddenly rose and a flood poured into the cave.

One of the two guides accompanying the tourists was swept away by the water and brought back into the cave, while the other members of the group managed to escape the current. When they got out, they were brought to safety by forest rangers, the Bangkok Post reported.

Two Dutch tourists suffered minor leg injuries.

Legal action ordered against tourism company

After several searches by forest rangers and rescuers, the body of the missing guide was found inside the cave on Wednesday, August 7. His name was Pongyot Koeddee and he was 37 years old.

The director general of the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plants, Attapol Charoenchansa, said on Wednesday that he had ordered the head of Khao Sok National Park to take legal action against the tour company that took the holidaymakers to Nam Talu Cave when it was closed.

It is not yet known why the two guides ignored the rule on Tuesday.

On October 13, 2007, eight people drowned in a flash flood in the cave.