I don't know who to tell, but it seems to me that if you bring an air hose into the Thailand Cave, you've got a great chance to pressurize the cave, and by so doing you will force the water to recede.
Because the people are short on oxygen, it implies that the supply of air is limited. A person consumes about 100 cubic feet per day of air (or more precisely, the 20% oxygen in the air). The fact that they are depleting the oxygen suggests that there may be limited volume with poor ventilation. If so, it also means you can fill it with air and the leak rate may be considerably smaller than what a decent pump can provide.
You may not be able to just pump water out of the cave, because that lowers the pressure and causes more water to flow in to take its place.
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| The water level has risen to flood passages into the enclosed volume where the soccer team is trapped. |
So, is it possible to connect sections of hose from the surface to where the team is? Then you need a compressor to deliver maybe 20 cfm to the cave. If the cave is pressurized with air, the water will recede. If you pressurize with 4 psi, it will recede 10 feet. 8 psi will cause it to recede 20 feet. How low do you need the water to be in order to walk out of the passages?
If you could pump 20 cfm of air into the cave, the air would push out the water.
If the cave leaks too much and won't hold pressure, can you spray the walls with polyurethane foam to plug them up?
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