Long rescue ahead

> Thai cave boys to get four months’ food, learn to dive

BANGKOK: Rescuers braced for a long and difficult evacuation for 13 members of a Thai youth football team found alive in a cave nine days after they went missing, as food and medicine was shuttled to them through muddy waters yesterday.

The 12 young boys and their football coach were discovered rake thin and hungry on a mound of mud surrounded by water late on Monday, ending the agonising search that captivated a nation.

But the focus quickly shifted to the tricky task of how to evacuate them safely from the still-flooded caverns.

Much-needed food and medical supplies – including high-calorie gels and paracetamol – reached them yesterday as rescuers prepared for a prolonged extraction operation.

The Thai military said it is providing four months’ supply of food and diving lessons to the boys to help them out of the waterlogged Tham Luang network in the country’s monsoon-drenched north.

“(We will) prepare to send additional food to be sustained for at least four months and train all 13 to dive while continuing to drain the water,” Navy Captain Anand Surawan said.

He refused to say how long they might be trapped, but experts said it could take weeks or even months.

The astonishing rescue sparked jubilation across the country after the country mounted a massive and gruelling operation beset by downpours and fast-moving floodwaters.

“We called this ‘mission impossible’ because it rained every day... but with our determination and equipment we fought nature,” Chiang Rai governor Narongsak Osottanakorn said yesterday.

The boys were discovered at about 10pm on Monday by British divers some 400m from where they were believed to be stranded several kilometres inside the cave.

In the video, posted on the Thai Navy SEAL Facebook page, one of the boys asks the rescuers to “go outside”.

In response, the British diver says: “No, no not today ... many, many people are coming ... we are the first” in reference to the vast and complex rescue operation that has taken over the mountainside.

The harrowing task of getting the boys out is complicated by the fact that they are in a weak state and are not experienced divers.

The rugged and wet kilometres-long course towards the entrance takes a healthy SEAL diver six hours.

If diving proves impossible, there is an outside chance they can be drilled out or wait for waters to recede and walk out on foot.

But the clock is ticking with heavy rains forecast to return this week as the monsoon season bites deeper.

The priority is to get the team’s strength up before they start the tricky journey out, said officials who are reluctant to offer a concrete timeline. – AFP