EIGHTH BOY RESCUED FROM FLOODED THAI CAVE
Thai Navy SEALs confirm 4 more saved on second day of rescue operation
EIGHT of the 12 young footballers and their coach who had been trapped deep inside a Thai cave for more than a fortnight have been rescued, the Navy SEALs involved in the operation said yesterday.
“2 days, 8 Wild Boars. Hooyah,” the Thai Navy SEALs said in a post on their official Facebook page, referring to the boys and their coach by the name of their football team.
Rescue workers dived deep inside a flooded Thai cave for a second straight day yesterday in a treacherous bid to save a group of young footballers, with the mission chief promising more “good news” after four of the 13 were saved.
Sunday’s surprisingly quick extraction of the initial batch of four, who were guided out of a network of flooded tunnels by elite divers, fuelled optimism that the others would also be quickly rescued.
“All the equipment is ready. Oxygen bottles are ready,” rescue operations chief Narongsak Osottanakorn said after announcing the second phase of the rescue bid had begun.
“In the next few hours, we will have good news.”
Shortly after 5pm local time (6pm Malaysian time), reporters saw a stretcher being carried from an ambulance into a waiting police helicopter, as rumours swirled of a fifth evacuation from the cave.
But the view of the stretcher was shielded by large umbrellas held up by police and soldiers.
Thais have been fixated on the crisis, hoping desperately for the safe return of the 12 boys and their 25-year-old football coach, after they ventured into the Tham Luang cave complex after practice and became trapped by rising waters on June 23.
The saga has also dominated global headlines, with the team spending nine days unaccounted for inside the cave, before British divers found the emaciated and dishevelled group huddling on a muddy bank above the flooding.
Prime Minister Prayut Chan o Cha was due to visit the rescue operation yesterday.
For the relatives of the Wild Boar team members, an agonising vigil continued.
“I am waiting here at the cave, keeping my fingers crossed to see whether my son will be one of those to come out today,” Supaluk Sompiengjai, mother of Pheeraphat, known by his nickname “Night”, said yesterday.
“We heard four boys are out but we do not know who they are. Many parents are here waiting. None of us has been informed of anything.”
And although the four had been rescued, there were concerns they may have contracted an illness while in the cave, Narongsak said.
“They (the four) will be kept away from their parents for a while because we are concerned about infections.”