THAI CAVE RESCUE: MORE BOYS OUT
Four more boys were last night rescued from the flooded cave complex, according to reports, bringing the total number brought out to eight. The boys brought out overnight (NZ time) were treated by medics at a field clinic before ambulances and helicopter
More than half of the young football team trapped in a flooded cave in northern Thailand for more than two weeks with their coach have been rescued.
Four more boys emerged from the cave last night, according to reports, taking the total rescued to eight. Four boys and the coach remained.
Volunteers outside the cave in Chiang Rai cheered as news of the first boy rescued on Monday emerged.
Witnesses reported seeing a stretcher being carried out of the cave about 4.30pm (9.30pm NZ time). About half an hour later an ambulance was seen leaving the cave complex before a helicopter took off from the site. At 11pm (NZT) witnesses reported seeing a sixth boy carried out on a stretcher and by midnight there were reports of a seventh rescue with an eighth soon after.
Thai public television aired live video of a medivac helicopter landing near a hospital in the city of Chiang Rai. Medics appeared to remove a stretcher but hid the person’s identity behind multiple white umbrellas.
An ambulance was seen leaving straight afterward, believed to be taking the rescued boy to hospital.
The Chiang Rai province’s governor and head of the joint command centre co-ordinating the operation, Narongsak Osatanakorn, said the second phase began at 4pm (NZT).
Nothing was yet known about the health of the latest boys to be rescued, but officials said earlier that the four boys rescued overnight on Sunday were hungry but in good health in hospital. They said at a news conference the parents of the rescued boys were yet to be allowed physical contact with their sons pending a more extensive examination of the boys.
The operation to get the trapped boys out resumed only after new tanks of compressed air could be placed along their route of escape, which was partially underwater.
Despite the many challenges, Osatanakorn struck an upbeat note at a press conference: “I expect in the next hours we will have good news.”
He said the rescued boys were in good spirits and had asked for spicy basil pork with rice to eat.
“We are considering to let the parents see the boys. Perhaps visiting . . . outside the [transparent] glass room,” he was reported as saying.
Asked which boys were coming
out first, officials implied it would be the stronger and healthier boys despite suggestions the first four removed had been the weakest of the group. “The perfect ones, the most ready ones,” Osatanakorn said.
There were fears the perilous
journey to rescue the remaining boys could have been even more dangerous, with rescuers yesterday waking to gloomy skies as thunderstorms loomed, after a night of heavy monsoonal rains lashing the mountainous region. That led to concerns
rising floodwaters in the cave complex would complicate rescue efforts and affect the evacuation.
But authorities said heavy downpours overnight did not raise water levels in the cave, from where workers continued to pump water.
Osatanakorn said “the factors are as good as yesterday . . . the rescue team is the same team with a few replacements” and added: “The water level is not worrisome . . . Yesterday’s rain did not affect water levels inside the cave.”