Eight saved, five to go in Thai cave rescue
Four more boys taken to hospital after divers extract them in second day of operation
And then there were five.
A week after rescue divers emerged in a dark and flooded cave to discover that — against all odds — a missing team of Thai soccer players had somehow managed to survive10 days of isolation, their rescue continued on Monday with astonishing rapidity.
A day after the first four people were guided to freedom along a torturous underwater course, rescuers pulled four more team members from a flooded cave complex in Thailand on Monday in a daring rescue that continued to defy the odds, bringing to eight the number rescued so far.
Five members of the group — initially 12 soccer players and their coach — remained in the cavern where they took refuge from rising water. Narongsak Osottanakorn, who is overseeing the search-and-rescue operation, said he hoped that they could all be brought out Tuesday.
The four survivors rescued Monday have all been hospitalized in Chiang Rai, the nearest large city, Narongsak said.
“All of them are safe and conscious,” he said.
Those rescues bring the total to eight after two days of pulling team members from the cave. The12 players of the Wild Boars soccer team and their coach were trapped in the flooded cave complex on June 23.
A message on the Thai navy SEALs Facebook page said, “2 days, 8 Boars.”
Officials have declined to identify any of the people who have been rescued or those who remain in the cave.
One good sign for the next stage of the operation is that the pace of the rescue was considerably quicker on the second day.
On Sunday, it took 11 hours to bring out four people. But on Monday, it took only nine hours to bring out the next four, Narongsak said.
He said that was in part because the divers had become more skilled in manoeuvering through the cave’s flooded passageways while holding the boys below them. It also helped that more than 100 people participated in the operation, more than on the first day, he said.
Few if any of the boys know how to swim, so teams of divers had to embrace them from above for hours as they navigated the treacherous, underwater passage out of the cave complex.
Narongsak said he was optimistic about the chances of bringing out all of the remain- ing five Tuesday.
“We think we will do it better and the success will be 100 per cent,” he said.
One wrong move, however, could prove deadly for anyone involved in the rescue operation.
One veteran diver, a former member of the Thai Navy SEALs, lost consciousness and died early Friday after placing spare air tanks along the route.
Officials said that a new weir, or low dam, built outside the cave was helping to keep water levels relatively stable within it. The weather was co-operating, too: After a day of torrential downpours Sunday, things cleared up Monday. A threat has persisted throughout the ordeal that monsoon rains could push water levels in the team’s precarious refuge even higher.
At the hospital in Chiang Rai province, relatives of the rescued boys were not able to visit them in their rooms because of concerns about infection, Narongsak said.
Mongkol Boonpiam, one of the boys who was listed among those who had been rescued on a Facebook messenger group used by some of the parents, was considered to have been the weakest of those trapped.
“We will be waiting for more good news,” said Rattana Maksuk, an administrator and teacher at the Mae Sai Prasitsart School, which is attended by six of the boys who were trapped in the cave complex.
“We think we will do it better and the success will be 100 per cent.” NARONGSAK OSOTTANAKORN OVERSEEING RESCUE OPERATION