Desperate search for lost boys
Thailand Prime Minister urges families not to give up hope after 7-day emergency.
Thai rescue teams searching for 12 boys trapped in a waterlogged cave practiced evacuation and medical procedures yesterday, as the desperate search went into its seventh day.
Millions of Thais are following the desperate search for the trapped schoolboys and their football coach.
Rescuers including elite Thai navy divers, a US military team and British cave experts have been frustrated by incessant rain that has flooded the cave and made finding the boys more difficult.
Despite efforts to drain the water, muddy floodwaters reached near the entrance of the cave while rescuers kept trying to find hidden shafts in the green mountainside to access the cavern.
In a desperate move, officials dropped into the shafts care packages stuffed with food, beverages, a phone, a torch, candles, a lighter and a map of the cave.
There has been no contact with the boys, aged 11 to 16, and their coach since they went into the cave last weekend and were hemmed in by heavy rains that blocked the entrance. Those downpours have continued all week.
Thailand’s prime minister has urged their relatives to not give up hope.
“There has to be faith. Faith makes everything a success,” Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, the country’s military ruler, told families waiting outside the cave.
“Faith in the actions of officials. Faith in our children who are strong and vigorous.”
Through it all, though, hope remains that the boys and their coach can be found alive.
Yesterday attention turned to their chances of survival inside a cave with little or no food and light.
The boys likely have access to freshwater — either dripping through rocks or rushing in through the entrance — but experts warned that runoff from nearby farms could carry dangerous chemicals or bacteria.
Anmar Mirza, co-ordinator of the US National Cave Rescue Commission, said even without food young, athletic boys could “easily live for a month or a month and a half” but the main challenge now would be mental resolve.
“The biggest issue that they’re facing right now if they’re alive is psychological because they don’t know at what point they might get rescued,” Mirza said from Indiana.
Thai Navy Seal divers explored the entrance of the cave where muddy, fast-flowing waters complicated the search and water pumps were working around the clock to try and keep water levels down.
But it was a losing battle as a second chamber remained submerged. “Whenever the water recedes divers enter the cave immediately,” the Thai Navy Seal said on its Facebook page.
Several teams trekked into the thick jungle above the cave desperately looking for new openings that might lead to the trapped boys.
They found one “promising” entrance on Friday that led to a muddy chamber 40m down, Chiang Rai governor Narongsak Osottanakorn said.
But there was still no indication it linked to the main cave complex.
Officials said the boys know the site well and have visited many times before, buoying hopes that they might have trekked to a large airy chamber in the centre called Pattaya beach.
“There has to be faith. Faith makes everything a success.”
PM Prayuth Chan-ocha