Thai rescuers find possible lead for lost boys

Asia Correspondent THAILAND’S prime minister arrived in Chiang Rai yesterday amid news that rescuers may have a lead on finding a children’s football team that has been missing in a vast cave complex since last Saturday.

“We cannot say exactly what we found, but if we’re lucky we might have good news … but it could be a dead end as well,” governor Narongsak Osottanakorn said.

The Asian nation has been gripped by the search to find the 12 boys, aged 11 to 16, and their coach, 25, who went into the six-mile cave complex after a football match and became trapped by rising floodwaters.

“I’ve come to give everyone encouragement,” General Prayut Chan-o-cha told hard-pressed rescue workers and parents who have been camping outside the entrance to the cave. “Whatever can be done, do it, the government will back it,” he said.

Rescuers also lowered survival kits with food, water, medicine, a map and writing supplies into a narrow crevice.

The new focus of the search is the so-called “Monk’s Series”, a section of the cave where the football team could have taken refuge.