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Thai authorities say rescuers are approaching their 12 boys and their adult football coach who have been trapped in a northeastern Thai cave without contact for more than a week.
Narongsak Osottanakorn, governor of Chiang Rai Province where Tham Luang Cave is located, told reporters on Sunday that Thai Navy SEALs are approaching a room where it is hoped that missing persons have found refuge.
The divers have been trying to reach them for eight days since the boys, members of an 11-16 year old football team, and their 25-year-old assistant coach were trapped inside the complex on June 23 after sudden rains flooded their exit.
Narongsak said: "A comprehensive plan is ready" evacuation and transfer to a nearby hospital once they are removed from the cave. Paramedics, soldiers and volunteers successfully performed an evacuation exercise on Saturday
Read more: Thailand clings to hope while looking for a Missing football team enters its seventh day
A joint press conference with the governor, Admiral Arpakorn Yukongkaew, said his SEAL team was setting up a command center in the heart of the cave and was preparing a plan to transport them to the flooded corridor. If found alive, their extraction will be complicated; they may be malnourished and possibly injured.
"We still have to find a way to get them out," he says, moving them from a master bedroom to their command center inside the cave. kilometers. "The important thing is that we want to find them today."
The saga of the missing team seized the nation as rescue efforts snowballed a small local team to a multinational emergency response. US and Australian forces came to support the Thai authorities, as well as technical experts from the United Kingdom, Belgium and Israel.
The boys entered the cave after training with their assistant coach, 25 years old. Ekkapol Chantawong, about what was to be a hike of about five hours. But the monsoon rains flooded several rooms, preventing their exit. Their bicycles and cleats were then discovered abandoned at the entrance to the cave.
Soldiers and Thai police gather in the mountains near Tham Luang cave in Khun Nam Nang Non Forest Park in Chiang Rai Province on 30 June 2018 The operation continues for the children of a football team and their coach.
Lillian Suwanrumph-AFP / Getty Images
Authorities brought submersible pumps to drain the passage, but new rains continued to fill the chambers. Rescuers then began to look for alternatives, scouring the hill with drones and hand labor for cracks that could provide another entrance to a large room called Pattaya where it is hoped that there will be more than one. they took refuge
. Saturday, water levels began to decrease, and the pumps began to spring from the clear water. The SEALs have been able to dive deeper into the cave than before, and a conventional exit through the entrance to the cave has priority over efforts to descend through the chimneys.
Divers have been touring and descending tunnels day and night since last Sunday. But the thick mud and debris prevented them from seeing under the water, letting them feel blinded by the small openings in the walls of the cave. Oxygen tanks were installed at 25-meter intervals along the road to accelerate their thrust forward.
The parents of the missing children have camped on the site since their disappearance, sleeping on plastic chairs and some beds waiting for news of their sons. Buddhist monks arrive daily to guide them in prayer, while villagers make the trip to the muddy entrance to the cave.
The Thai authorities are working around the clock in the hope that the missing team is still alive. day. Captain Wuttichai, who oversees a team of Thai SEALs, says they will not give up before the thirteen of them are located.
"We will do our best," he told TIME, "of our hearts."
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