Thai boys ask for not too much homework in first letters from flooded cave
CHIANG RAI, Thailand (Reuters) — A soccer team of 12 Thai schoolboys and their coach trapped in a flooded cave for the past fortnight established contact with their parents for the first time through heartfelt letters as rescuers strove on Saturday to find a way to save them.
Short notes scribbled by each schoolboy on smudged, yellowish paper showed both humor and homesickness as they sought to reassure their relatives they were in good spirits.
“Please don’t worry,” the boys said in a collective message before each wrote short personal messages to their loved ones.
“We’re all healthy and strong. There’s so much food we want to eat when we get out. We want to go straight home,” they wrote.
However, the fate of the boys trapped in the Tham Luang cave complex in northern Chiang Rai province remained unclear.
Narongsak Osottanakorn, Chiang Rai’s former governor, told reporters their best chance yet to free the party could be in coming days before heavy rains set in, although he did not give a precise timeframe for a rescue attempt.
Getting to the spot where the boys sought refuge takes a nearly 11-hour round trip through 4 km (2.5 km) of winding, and occasionally narrow, submerged pathways.
Risks include further monsoon rains inundating the cave network and oxygen running out.
The boys, however, were already looking ahead and appealed to their schools not to be too hard on them.
“Teachers, please don’t give too much homework,” they wrote.
The correspondence was posted on a Thai Navy SEALs Facebook page early on Saturday that said the letters were brought out on Friday night.
It has not yet been possible to patch phone calls through the limestone hillside.