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Just hours after a football team was rescued from a partially flooded cave in northern Thailand, the water rushed into the water. entrance of the vast network of underground caves, said Thai officials.
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Chiang Rai Governor Narongsak Osatanakorn, local leader of the search and rescue operation, said the crews were to quickly evacuate the cave of Tham Luang Nang as the first chamber filled with water, shortly after the last members of the football team. their coach was retired Tuesday.
"You had to evacuate everything?" Matt Gutman of ABC News asked Narongsak during an interview on Wednesday.
"All," said Narongsak.
Thai military officials directly involved in the operation told ABC News that the main pump used to reduce the water levels inside the cave has suddenly failed and that the cave began to fill with water in Chiang Rai Province. .
Royal Thai Navy members and support crews barely arrived on time and were forced to leave about 300 air tanks in the cave, officials told ABC News.
If the boys had been driven by the rescuers a few hours later, they would have had to swim more than twice the distance – about a mile instead of half – what Narongsak said he thought was impossible because some of the boys were too weak to really swim or walk.
He called it a miracle that all 12 boys survived the ordeal.
Boys, aged 11 to 16, and their football coach of 25 years are trapped in Tham Luang Nang No, the longest cave in Thailand, during a hike on June 23. the pbadages are extinct ndent all the way in neighboring Myanmar.
It is believed that the coach often took the teammates of the Wild Boar Youth Soccer Team to the main entrance of the cave in the Khun Nam Nang Non Forest Park for fun excursions after workout.
But as the group ventured deeper into the cave on Saturday afternoon, the sky opened and it began to rain. The downpour sent floodwater rushing into the mouth of the cave and cutting off their exit route. The group advanced to find a high, dry slope where they remained stuck in total darkness for days.
After returning from the hike, the Thai authorities launched a mbadive search and rescue operation involving more than 1,000 people, including specialists from various countries such as Australia, China, Japan, United Kingdom and the United Kingdom. States.
Persistent rain initially impeded efforts to locate the group. But two British divers found all 13 alive on July 2 in an area a few miles from the main entrance to the cave.
A team of Royal Thai Navy members, a doctor, and a nurse stayed with the group, giving them powerful protein shakes and medical badessments, while rescuers worked on a plan to get them out as quickly as possible. as surely as possible. They had to fight Mother Nature to pump flood waters and divert the flow of water in the middle of the wet monsoon season in Thailand.
The death of a former member of the Royal Thai Navy volunteer for the rescue effort also hampered progress and shaken the rescuers last week. Saman Gunan lost consciousness under the water during a night operation that consisted of providing additional air tanks along a dangerous road that divers used to reach the airport. football team trapped.
He could not be reestablished and was confirmed dead in the early hours of July 6th.
Gunan, 38, served in the underwater demolition badault unit of the Royal Thai Navy, known as the SEAL of the Thai Navy. His death was the first and only casualty of the group rescue operation and pointed out the dangers of sailing in the cave underwater even for those who have experience.
"We were very sad, and we felt that the whole world was collapsing," Narongsak told ABC News during Wednesday's interview. "But after we talked together, we said we have to do everything, we need to get to the point where we can get the kids out."
The international diving teams evacuated the boys four by three over a period of three days this week, racing against time and an impending monsoon rain that threatened to ino to leave the cave again. The coach was the last to be evacuated.
Nineteen divers entered the cave complex during each rescue mission, with one to two divers guiding each of the boys with straps through a series of partially submerged caves and winding corridors. The first leg of the one-day mission lasted 11 hours Sunday, while the second Monday and third Tuesday lasted about nine hours each, according to Narongsak.
Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, the country's military leader, told reporters that the boys had received anti-anxiety medication before being evacuated to help with the rescue mission.
Shift. Charles Hodges, the commander of the mission in charge of US operations supporting the Thailand-led search and rescue operation, told ABC News that he was wondering if all the boys would go out alive from the cave.
"We knew that it was extremely risky with a low probability of success," Hodges told ABC News's ABC Stephanopoulos on Wednesday in an interview on "Good Morning America" .
"I'm incredibly impressed by how it worked, but at the same time, frankly, I thought it would be far worse."
Lillian Suwanrumpha / AFP / Getty Images Parents and family members are allowed to visit but must stay more than 6 feet away. The boys and their coach will be physically reunited with loved ones after they are no longer quarantined in about a week, according to Narongsak.
The boys will serve as monks shortly after they leave the hospital, Narongsak told ABC News.
Overall, "everyone is fine," according to Thongchai Lertwilairatanapong, a public health inspector.
"Nobody has a serious infection," Thongchai said at a press conference Wednesday. "Everyone can now rest and do daily activities."
Gov. Narongsak said that most of the boys were hungry and that they could not wait to be able to eat their favorite foods.
But the thing that they wanted the most? To watch the World Cup.
ABC News' Adrienne Bankert, Brandon Baur, Joohee Cho, Matt Foster, Ben Gittleson, Hugo Leenhardt, James Longman, Kelly McCarthy, Matt McGarry, Gamay Palacios, Kirit Radia, Rex Sakamoto, Scott Shulman Mike Trew Anthony Trotter, Sohel Uddin, Marcus Wilford, Karson Yiu and Robert Zepeda contributed to this report.
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