Much of the rescue efforts are aimed at draining the water from the cave.
The news that 12 teenagers and their football coach trapped in a cave in Thailand since June 23 were found alive on Monday were very much celebrated, but the nightmare not over.
The difficulties in saving them are enormous, as the following graphs show.
The group was found in a small area more than 2 km from the entrance – and at a depth of 800 meters to 1 km.
The big problem is that this place is isolated from the entrance by several areas that have been submerged by the heavy rains of the last days.
Much of the rescue efforts have focused on evacuating the cave water, and the rescue can take weeks or even months.
Underground Survival
The Thai Navy announced Monday that she would be preparing to send food so that the 13 can survive for at least four months and teach them to dive.
But even if they can do it, some parts of the cave are too narrow, which requires a lot of training to be able to cross these places using diving cylinders.
The professional divers who located the group took several hours to get there, through tight pbadages full of debris, but teens do not have the level of training to come back .
"Someone in the middle of zero visibility who is not familiar with these extreme conditions … is very easy to panic," Edd Sorenson, Florida regional coordinator of the organization Non-Profit Rescue and Rescue Underwater International, which brings together volunteers willing to help in such operations.
A team of more than 1,000 people, including Army and Navy personnel, local workers, volunteers and specialized teams from different countries, participates in rescue.
Another option that is being evaluated is to drill the walls of the cave, but it would be necessary to clear the way to the surface to accommodate the heavy equipment needed to cross the rock.