From the cover
‘We will bring all the boys home’ Tears of joy for anxious parents How the Thai boys are being rescued
Adozen Thai teenage footballers and their coach who have been trapped in a partially flooded cave for more than two weeks began a perilous underwater swim to safety yesterday, accompanied by rescue divers, as they raced to beat an oncoming storm, officials said.
Four boys were freed in the effort, and ambulances and later a helicopter were seen leaving the cave site where the youth football team had been stranded. They were the first members rescued from the team that has been trapped since June 23 by floodwaters in a dark, six-milelong cave system in northern Thailand. Chiang Rai’s acting governor Narongsak Osatanakorn, who is heading the operation, said that 90 foreign and Thai divers were taking part in the rescue.
“Divers will work with doctors in the cave to examine each the kids’ health to determine who should get to come out first,” he said. Here are the most critical questions surrounding the dramatic rescue operations:
Why is the rescue mission considered so risky?
Ferrying those stranded through a 4km maze of perils is a daunting proposition, experts said, all the more so since none of the children are said to be able to swim, much less use diving gear. Rescue experts said the swim was extremely difficult due to the maze-like caverns where visibility underwater is often only a few inches, and where only one diver can pass at a time at some points. It takes experienced divers roughly five hours to travel from the slope where the boys are, through a fork to reach Chamber 3, a dry area where the Thai navy has set up a command post. Yet, the Thai navy SEALs vowed on Facebook to bring the team home from the cave. “We, the Thai team and the international team, will bring the Wild Boars home. We will bring all the boys home.”
How did the boys manage to come out if they didn’t know how to swim?
The Thai government said two divers were paired with each footballer being rescued along the dangerous path back to the surface. The water levels in the cave are the lowest they have been throughout this mission, and the first few chambers that the group passed through all of which were flooded days ago – were dry. Oxygen levels, too, have stabilised following fears that the chamber the group was in was filling with carbon dioxide from members of the large rescue operation.
Each of the two divers was fitted with a face mask connected to a compressed air tank. At narrow parts of the cave, the tanks were released from their backs and rolled instead. Officials said that conditions were as perfect as they can be for the rescue attempt, factoring in the weather and water and oxygen levels in the cave.
What happened after the boys came out of the cave?
Thirteen medical teams were deployed outside the cave, each with its own helicopter and ambulance - one for each of 12 boys and their coach. After an initial assessment at the site, the boys were airlifted to a makeshift helipad close to the Chiang Rai Prachanukroh hospital, some 70km away. Five emergency response doctors were attending to the rescued boys and a further 30 doctors were on stand-by.
Why did the rescue operation start on Sunday?
Thai authorities had initially said the boys could stay where they were found inside the cave for weeks or even months. But the fear of fresh flooding from an incoming monsoon and declining oxygen inside the cave prompted officials to launch the mission yesterday under gloomy skies. Calling it “a D-Day,” Narongsak said the highrisk mission began at 10am local time. “The boys are physically, emotionally and mentally ready to come out, no matter what challenges lie ahead,” he said. “I insisted we’re ready for the operation today.”
What preparations did the Thai navy SEALs undertake before the rescue?
A team of ambulances picked up the boys, ages 11 to 16, at the mouth of Tham Luang Nang Non cave in northern Thailand, where they were trapped by floodwaters during a hike after soccer practice on June 23. In recent days, Thai navy divers and medics had been treating the boys’ minor injuries, fortifying them with high-protein gels and teaching them how to wear diving masks and breathe in preparation for the evacuation. Rescue workers have pumped out millions of gallons of water, flooding nearby farms but reducing the water levels inside the cave to their lowest in many days. The boys’ family members, who have been holding a vigil near the mouth of the cave, were briefed on the operation before it began, officials said.
Did the rescuers try any other way out for the boys?
Army and navy crews involved in the rescue operations drilled more than 100 holes on the mountain, one of them 400 metres deep, as was done to save 33 Chileans trapped in a collapsed mine in 2010. But none reached the cavern where the group is trapped. They also attempted to run a hose from the cave entrance to pump air into it, where the oxygen level remained a major concern. None of the alternative methods was successful. Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk said on Twitter a team from his rocket company SpaceX was building a “tiny kid-size submarine” to help with the rescue, although he gave a timeline that suggested it would not arrive in Thailand until today at the earliest.
How did the boys gets trapped in the cave?
The team was exploring the cave with their assistant coach when the water level rose, trapping them in one of the chambers in the complex. The effort to find and rescue the group has drawn the attention of communities from across the globe. More than 1,000 people from various countries are reportedly involved in the rescue efforts, and even more have volunteered to help.