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SINGAPORE – They are alive and in relatively good shape considering their ordeal, but many challenges remain for 12 boys and a football coach who have survived up to 10 days in a flooded cave in Thailand and are still far from seeing the light of day.
Divers who braved troubled water and strong currents found the football team Monday on a dry ledge more than a mile from the entrance to the cave. The team stayed there Tuesday, more alone, with food, water and medicine, as the authorities tried to find the best way to extract them safely.
It's the season of the Sunday monsoon. The monsoon lasts until the end of summer. It is expected that the water in the cave will increase.
The boys and their coach are not in danger of drowning. But the flood waters have cut their way to escape. None of the boys can swim. The authorities plan to give all 13 participants an intensive underground diving course so that they can swim through the flooded passages.
The cheerful news that the football team was found alive were associated with vexations. At least a thousand people are involved in the rescue effort, with help coming from around the world, but the technology is struggling to overcome the geology of the Tham Luang cave complex. There is no easy way to rescue the trapped team.
Engineers drained water from some parts of the cavern, but it is a vast underground cavern fed by a vast watershed. There is no sign that efforts have lowered water levels to a point that would allow foot mining.
Officials said Tuesday that they could try to bring out some of the boys in a few hours, but they also said that they wanted to take no unnecessary risks. At one point, the authorities suggested that the rescue could take months.
"We will not get out of the cave," said Chiang Rai governor Narongsak Osoththanakorn. ] The boys are between 11 and 16 years old and are with their 25 year old coach. They were reported missing on June 23 while they were exploring the six-mile-long cave, which lies in a park in northern Thailand near the border with Myanmar
The attention of the world has been riveted to their story. the miners who were trapped for 69 days nearly half a mile below the surface in 2010. The engineers finally drilled a new hole to reach their room and all the miners were pulled to the surface one by one then that a global audience was watching live TV. 19659011] Members of the Thai football team were discovered Monday by two British divers, Rick Stanton and John Volanthen. In a video posted by the Thai Navy on his Facebook page, the boys are seen huddled on a rock in t-shirts and mud-stained shorts surrounded by water.
"How many of you are there – 13" Brilliant, "a member of the rescue team, speaking in English, told the boys. "You've been here 10 days.You're very strong."
When one of the boys asked if they could leave the cave, the rescuers responded that they could not yet but that many people came for them.
"Navy SEAL will come tomorrow, with food and doctors and everything," said the rescuer.
British divers described their three-hour round trip to the cave as difficult because of the darkness of the water. The rescuers had to fight against the current as they made their way through narrow and flooded passages by hanging on the walls.
[Meet the British ‘A-team’ divers at the center of Thailand cave rescue]
Members of the British diving community reported that Stanton and Volanthen had participated in several rescues. The Thai authorities called them to help
"I said from the outset that if anyone would find these children, it would be these two divers, who are arguably the best in the world," he said. said Andy Eavies, a spokesman for the British Caving Association, told the Washington Post. "Compared to what Rick and John normally do, it's an extremely easy dive, the only complication was the flow of water," he said, referring to the current.
Volanthen, a computer engineer, told the Sunday Times 2013 that the secret of cave diving was to keep a cool head. "Panic and adrenaline are great in some situations – but not in cave diving," he said. "The last thing you want is adrenaline."
A limestone cave complex looks like a giant sponge, said Amy Frappier, a geoscience professor at Skidmore College, who did extensive research in caves. She said that when the water table is low, you can walk throughout the complex, but the air holes fill up when the water table rises after heavy rains.
That seems to be what happened here: The boys and their trainer were walking in the cave, then the rain came. They could not go back because they should have been swimming through flooded passages.
[A boys’ soccer team trapped in a flooded Thai cave has been found alive — nine days later]
The options to extract the football team include drilling from the surface to create another exit. But experts warned that it could take a long time.
"Caves are these complicated three-dimensional environments, so you do not necessarily know the surface where you can drill a hole to get to a passage," said Frappier.
The boys and the coach are no longer alone. They received a visit from a doctor and a nurse who accompanied five other divers, and were given high-protein liquid foods, said Arpakorn Yookongkaew, commander of the Thai Navy, at the request. from the Associated Press. The boys are entertained and a phone line is being set up to allow them to talk to their families, the BBC reported.
The quickest way to get them out would be to have them use diving equipment. It is obviously risky. Mr Yookongkaew said the authorities "must be certain that it will work and must have a drill" to make sure that "it is 100% safe," reported the AP news agency.
Khaosod English, a press organization based in Bangkok. asking for donations of small diving masks that would be suitable for boys because ordinary diving equipment could be too dangerous.
Public servants say they have conducted an informal medical assessment and determined that most boys are in stable condition. Nobody has critical wounds, said Chiang Rai's governor.
The boys and their trainer did not know what day the divers had found them
"After so many days, their normal circadian rhythm was starting to collapse," said Frappier. "It will look very bright when they come out in the sun.They can try to get them out at night."
Adam brought back from London and Achenbach from Washington. Angela Fritz in Washington contributed to this report.
Read more:
A men's football team trapped in a flooded Thai cave was discovered – nine days later
Rain, high water complicate the search for a Thai football team
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