A team of Chinese rescuers involved in a recent boating incident near Thailand returned to the Chinese city of Guangzhou on Monday. The disaster killed 47 Chinese tourists, after two boats were overturned in rough seas in southern Thailand's Phuket on July 5th. CGTN's Cui Hui'ao talks to the leader of the team about the challenging work.

A total of 12 Chinese divers, engineers and doctors were part of rescue efforts following a boat capsizing near Phuket two weeks ago. They arrived there July 7th, two days after the incident, where a boat carrying 89 passengers capsized off the island. Rescue group leader Wang Renyi says his team faced two major challenges in trying to retrieve victims bodies.

WANG RENYI, LEADER CHINESE RESCUE FORCE "One is the bad weather. The first three days we were there, the waves were around 3 meters high, and the wind was of force 6 to 7. We couldn't get down to the bottom. Secondly, around that area waters were as deep as 40 meters, which means our divers could only be operating under water for 20 minutes. They had to switch with each other."

Wang says normally the water depth is less than 12 meters, and that those conditions are much more conducive for such work. Nevertheless, the rescue braved the elements for days searching in and around the sunken boat, particularly in areas like the canteen, meeting room and corridors where bodies were believed to be.

WANG RENYI, LEADER CHINESE RESCUE FORCE "The last body of the victim took us days to retrieve. It was at the rear end and was totally trapped under the boat, with only a pair of legs out. The sand in that area was very hard and we had to use tools to excavate it before pulling the body off shore. That took us some time."

Wang says the nine-day joint operation between Chinese and Thai rescue forces went fairly well overall. He says the two teams made plans together, and actually helped complement one another, with Thai Navy divers better at working with oxygen tanks and Chinese divers prone to use what they call the KMB equipment. Wang hopes there will be more such international collaboration on joint rescue efforts in the future. Cui Hui'ao, CGTN, Guangzhou.