NEW DELHI, Sept 10: Rescue teams in Turkey on Sunday successfully carried an American researcher up from the depth of a cave at 1,040m, one of the deepest in the world, up to the 700-metre mark where he will rest at a base camp before they continue the taxing journey to the surface.
An experienced caver, Mark Dickey, 40, started vomiting on September 2 because of stomach bleeding while on an expedition with some others in the Morca cave in southern Turkey’s Taurus Mountains which the experts said was one of the deepest mountain caves in the world.
A rescue operation began on Saturday afternoon with doctors, paramedics and experienced cavers from across Europe rushing to help. They set up small medical base camps at various levels along the shaft, providing Mr Dickey an opportunity to rest during the slow and arduous extrication.
“Mark was delivered to the campsite at -700 meters as of 03:24 local time (GMT+3). At this stage, he will set out again after resting and having the necessary treatments,” the Speleological Federation of Turkey wrote on its official account on X. Turkish authorities said there are 190 personnel from eight countries taking part in the operation, 153 of them search and rescue experts.
The most challenging part of the rescue operation is widening the narrow cave passages to allow stretcher lines to pass through at low depths, Yusuf Ogrenecek of the speleological federation said. The extraction is likely to take up to 10 days depending on his condition.
(Manas Dasgupta)