WINDOW NARROWS FOR CAVE RESCUE

With heavy rain and a possible rise in carbon dioxide expected, divers have only a narrow window of 3-4 days to extract 12 boys and their football coach trapped in a flooded cave in Thailand. More than 100 exploratory holes have been bored to open a secon

Conditions are “perfect” to evacuate a young football team from a flooded Thai cave in the coming days before fresh rains and a possible rise in carbon dioxide further imperil the group, the rescue mission chief said on Saturday.

The plight of 12 Thai boys and their coach from the “Wild Boar” football team has transfixed Thailand since they became trapped in a cramped chamber of the Tham Luang cave complex on June 23.

Rescuers have conceded that evacuating the boys is a race against time with monsoon rains expected to undo days of round-the-clock drainage of the deluged cave.

“Now and in the next three or four days, the conditions are perfect (for evacuation) in terms of the water, the weather and the boys’ health,” Narongsak Osottanakorn the chief of the rescue operation told reporters.

Rescuers have fed a kilometreslong air pipe into the cave to restore oxygen levels in the chamber where the team are sheltering, accompanied by medics and expert divers.

“When we’re in a confined space if the oxygen drops to 12 per cent the human body starts to slow down and people can fall unconscious,” Narongsak said. “There’s also carbon dioxide. If the oxygen levels are down and the carbon dioxide levels are up, then you can get too much carbon dioxide in your blood.”

Heavy rains could make the water rise to the shelf where the children are sitting, reducing the area to “less than 10 square metres,” he added. In the early hours of Saturday morning he said the boys were not yet ready to dive-out of the cave, a complex and dangerous task through twisting and jagged submerged passageways.

But his comments 12 hours later suggest the thinking has changed, with water levels inside the cave currently managed to their lowest point by constant drainage.

Meanwhile, the 25-year-old coach Ekkapol Chantawong, the only adult to accompany the boys into the cave, sent his “apologies” to their parents. “To all the parents, all the kids are still fine. I promise to take the very best care of the kids,” he said in a note given to divers on Friday.

“Thank you for all the moral support and I apologise to the parents.”

Ekkapol’s message is the first from the coach, whose role in the team’s predicament has split Thai social media.

The boys are being trained in the basics of diving in case the floodwaters force authorities into a sudden evacuation.

The risks were underlined by the death on Friday of a former Thai Navy SEAL diver, who ran out of oxygen while returning from the chamber where the boys are trapped. Saman Kunan had been trying to establish the air line when he passed out and perished. —

Bangkok Cave widens again Doi Nang Non mountain Pong pha T-junction Cave widens M Chamber 3 Operation base Tunnel narrows to around one metre high Pattaya Beach smallest section Group found in cave under this point Person to scale Chamber 2 Entrance Group of 12 boys and their football coach found perched on rock shelf in a small chamber about 4KM from the cave mouth KT GRAPHIC • SOURCE: GRAPHIC NEWS Static rope Tether to diver THAILAND Full-face mask Tham Luang cave complex Former Thai navy diver dies while returning used air tanks to Chamber 3 Compressed air bottle Boy’s bottle Cross-sections of cave taken from 1986 survey Teaching boys how to swim and use breathing apparatus so they can be escorted out of cave by rescue divers, is thought to be most realistic option 1,276 Main entrance

AFP A group of soldiers carries a haven pump on bamboo sticks to help drain the rising flood water in the cave in Mae Sai, Chiang Rai province, in northern Thailand . —