"Where have you been?": The challenge of the Thai caves quickly became a trap

"Nobody is online."

"Where are The recipient, Pornchai Kamluang, 16 years old, has never responded and, as everyone knows now, he and 11 other members of his football team, as well as their coach, were trapped in. Two weeks later, they remain there despite the international efforts of organizations like the Navy SEAL and the US Army and more than 10,000 Thai soldiers, divers, engineers and volunteers, La Petite Warangkana Somsamoechai's 14-year-old friend warned her boyfriend, better known as Tee, not to enter the caves that day, which began in May.

Th were fighting after a morning football game, then again on the phone around two in the morning, just before the group entered the caves.She said that she hung up on angry Tee.Now she says that & # 39; She wants her to be able to pick it up again.

L & # 39; hi Stories of trapped boys and their coach has fascinated the world. Brazilian footballer Ronaldo urged the boys to stay strong, and FIFA, the organizer of the World Cup, invited them to the July 15 final in Russia.

Elon Musk

sent engineers for assistance. An emergency worker died in the effort

Interviews with friends and colleagues show that although some were seriously concerned about the risk, many were completely blinded by the dangerousness of the hiking

. leaving with his teammates only because his mother worried about his younger brother – that she found too young for speleology – would sneak too. The video clips filmed by the students on the way and visualized by the Journal show them under a cloudy sky, on wet roads of recent rains.

We know more about speleologists themselves. Among them, a football coach who spent most of the last decade as a novice in a Buddhist monastery; a student from Myanmar come to Thailand in search of a better life; and a football fanatic who is afraid of darkness.

On Saturday morning, the Thai Navy SEALs brought the first set of group letters to the family outside, filled with health insurance and prayers not to worry; a boy said that he was anxious to eat barbecue pork

. But indications are growing that the "13 lives", as they are called locally, are facing growing dangers. The authorities have ruled out Saturday to keep the boys underground until the rainy season ends in a few months, an option considered the safest alternative. Some people involved in the rescue have said the waters may not shrink enough before the end of the year.

It takes more than 5 hours for divers to make a one-way trip to the boys, even after a long period of torrential and continuous rain. pumping to drain the water.

The air in the caves is poisoned with carbon dioxide from the number of people underground. Authorities said on Saturday that they were removing some cave rescuers to facilitate the deterioration and pumping of oxygen.

Heavy downpour or deterioration in cave conditions may force authorities to arrange a quick rescue

"Earlier, I thought the boys might get by for a while," said Vice Admiral Thai Navy SEA Aphakorn Yoo-kongkaew to the press Friday night. "But now the situation has changed, we have limited working hours."

The tragedy began two weeks ago when Ekkapol Chantawong, assistant coach of the Wild Boars football club, decided to take some players on a trip after a Saturday training match

Everyone, have a drink of water and please go to bed. Bicycle gang, we see each other at school at 8:20, "he wrote in a group discussion

Facebook

Messenger on Friday, June 22, which was seen by the Journal. "Do not forget to have breakfast and prepare lunch for everyone."

The next morning at 6:36, Mr. Ekkapol sent another message: "All, do not forget to bring your flashlight."

to have one but that is very lame, buddy. Hahaha, "replied a boy.

The 70-member football club idol Mr. Ekkapol, 25, hired by the Boars head coach to train the boys in daily training. Ek, as we call him, had moved to the area after several years spent in a Buddhist monastery a hundred kilometers to the south, to take care of his grandmother on the other side. the border, Myanmar

Ekkapol now lives in a local temple and with his grandmother on the other side of the border in Myanmar.The temple abbot, Phra Prayut Jetiyanukarn, describes it as a responsible young man who meditates regularly and wears an amulet widely believed to protect the wearer from damage.

After playing football, coach Ek assures that his players have water before drink some himself, people who know the club disen He often takes the team on excursions

The players who accompany him in the cave are very tight and crazy football, say friends

Duangpetch Promthep, 13 years old, or Dom, the Gregarious captain of the Wild Boars. , plays the attacker and dreams of becoming a professional someday, say friends. Dom is popular with girls and sometimes exuberant, they say.

The survivor of the Boars is Adun Sam-on, the eldest of the five brothers and sisters of a poor family in Myanmar. The Adun family sent the 14-year-old man to live in Thailand several years ago in the hope of a better life, say friends and teachers.

They describe him as a complete athlete with futsal volleyball trophies, playing the violin, piano and guitar and having an average of 3.94. Adun also wants to become pro and sees football as a way to stay in Thailand after finishing school.

"Football is my life," says one of Adun's best friends, Luea-Boon Junta,

The morning of June 23 rises. Weather reports predicted a high probability of heavy rains in northern Thailand. The wild boars split into two groups for a training match, and then prepared to bike to the caves.

Many had been there several times, an experience that some people found discouraging.

Dom, the captain, is afraid of the dark, says his 13-year-old girlfriend, Nutchanan Ramkeaw, who says he once refused to go out to eat something because it was night. He sees cave trips as a challenge that he can brave in a group, she says.

Another 13-year-old boy, Songpon Kanthawong, known as Pangpond, was too scared to venture further than the mouth of the cave. He was barred because his 11-year-old brother wanted to follow, which the boys' mother thought was too painful for his youngest son, says Pangpond's father, Noppadol Kanthawong. She forbade the two boys to go there, and then asked a neighbor to pick them up from the football club to make sure, said Mr Noppadol.

The boys entered the caves around 2 pm, shortly after Tee and his girlfriend quarreled

At 3 pm, a sudden downpour lasted half an hour, followed by continuous rain from 19 h. Mr. Noppadol recalls: [TRADUCTION] At around 8 pm, parents gave the alert, and Mr. Noppadol said that he had received a panicked call from the head coach. The coach and some parents joined the cave around 9 pm. He saw the boys' bicycles on the outside and then alerted the authorities, Noppadol said.

The cave system, estimated at more than 10 kilometers, or more than 6 miles, has not been fully explored; few people are familiar with the interior. SEALs from the Thai Navy and other divers installed pumps and pipelines that would drain 1.5 million liters every hour – nearly half of an Olympic pool –

Heavy rains during first days after the boys had missed rescuers. "I still can not dive into the cave," says a June 28 article on the Thai SEALs Facebook page. "Twenty pumps but vanquished." The water filled all the rooms and dumped the entrance. "

Even after the waters began to retreat a few days later, rescuers were facing conditions terrible.

to get through, even after cleaning the debris.

In other places, divers had to make their way through twisted and darkened passages by planting guiding ropes. While the divers were working further, they were installing relays with air tanks and other equipment every 25 meters

deeper, where the boys and the coach Ek s 39 had fled in search of higher ground.

The boys brought snacks and a little water, and everyone had a flashlight, say the Thai authorities. They ate and drank sparingly; Local press report Mr. Ekkapol is left to intimidate so that his charges can have more. He told the boys not to use their flashlights at the same time, to save the batteries.

When they ran out of water, Mr. Ekkapol warned the boys not to drink the muddy waters and drink water. He told the boys not to move a lot to conserve their energy and taught them meditation techniques to stay calm.

On day 10, while the 13 were sitting in the dark, two British divers were probing a passage in the interior. The cave system took its head out of the water and saw the group in front of them.

Since then, rescuers have taken the time to keep the boys healthy and find out how to get them out. Thai SEALS swam in food, medicine, paper covers and even chalk so children can draw on cave walls

The boys drew the SEALs logo with two sharks and an anchor. According to a video published by the Thai SEALs and posted online

A SEAL who swam up to the boys' room said that they had asked him questions about the World Cup.

"I told them that the teams left home," recalled the SEAL. "The boys laughed," he said.

A plan to extract the boys – by draining the water to safer levels, and then swimming through flooded passages – hit roadblocks. Last week, volunteers trying to drain water by digging holes around the mountain ended up leaving water.

Divers worried about boys' ability to stay When the Thai SEALs tested masks and breathing techniques on a local teenager last week, he became too agitated to breathe properly, said one person who saw the lawsuit.

another proposal – take the team out of the holes drilled in the ground – Governor Narongsak Osottanakorn, who heads the rescue operation, announced Saturday that the Thai seals have released Saturday the first batch of letters, scribbled muddy paper

E Kkapol is excused from parents and promised to take care of the boys. Dom asked his parents not to forget his birthday – July 8 – and said he was fine, but cold.

Adun wrote, "Do not worry about us, everyone misses me, I want to go home quickly."

– Wilawan Watcharasakwet contributed to this article.

Write to Warangkana Chomchuen at [email protected], Phred Dvorak at [email protected] and Jake Maxwell Watts at [email protected]