World waits as Thai-led team refuses to rush evacuations
The rescuers working to free the remaining nine members of the Moo Pa Academy soccer team have so far had great success but they cannot keep pace with the expectations of the watching world, which is anxious for results.
Reality doesn’t work that way, especially given the complexities of this tricky mission that has already cost the life of one highly trained Thai diver.
The Thai-led international team refuses to be rushed into any further fatal errors. The core rescue diver team needs rest between each extraction, and it needs to get more air tanks along the route for backup.
They now know they have the equipment to keep the boys alive for months, if needed, despite falling oxygen and rising carbon monoxide. The only thing they cannot control is the monsoon.
The people in this majority-Buddhist region like to be optimistic in their views. But they are still anxious to get their boys back.
“When the first kids got out, we felt encouraged. We are very happy,” said one of the parents, who was not named. “From last night till now we haven’t slept at all.”
But the parent — who was asked to sign a consent form for the mission to proceed — complained that the rescuers had not provided information about which of the boys had been rescued.
The first of the four boys are in hospital in the main Chiang Rai hospital, under observation for both their physical and mental wellbeing. There is no doubt they all faced deep trauma on their unplanned expedition.
Yesterday, the senior coach for Moo Pa Academy soccer team, Nopparat Katawong, said he was anxious that some media reports were painting coach Ekkapon Chantawongse as a villain and asked them to leave him alone.
That message has been repeated by senior government officials, who say he can do without the added burden.
Even as it appears they have committed to diving the boys out, Mae Sai border police are still up on the mountaintop searching for shafts as a contingency should anything go wrong.
For the boys, there must have been times they surely thought all hope was gone. Being chased by water for five kilometres in total blackness till they found a muddy ledge must have been beyond terrifying.
When the torchlight from two British divers found them, nine days later, they must have wondered if was a hallucination.
The mission rolls on. The feeling here is that the boys are in the best possible hands. There is a belief among the people of northern Thailand that the Tham Luang mission will succeed.