4 MORE BOYS RESCUED
Dangers in Thai cave intensify as oxygen drops
MAE SAI, Thailand — The generals and other officials overseeing the desperate operation to rescue 12 young soccer players and their coach from a flooded cave labyrinth in Thailand’s sweltering far north were only half joking when they quipped yesterday that success was in the hands of the rain god Phra Pirun.
They were celebrating a second day of stunning triumph after divers guided four more boys yesterday through tight passages and dank flooded caverns to safety. “Two days, eight Boars,” read a Facebook post by the Thai Navy SEALS of the dramatic rescue that began Sunday, more than two weeks after the members of the Wild Boars soccer team were trapped. Another five still await rescue, including the team’s 25-year-old coach.
The eight rescued boys were recuperating in a hospital from their ordeal huddled together on a tiny patch of higher ground where they had sought refuge after a rainstorm flooded the massive Tham Luan Nang Non cave complex as they were exploring it after soccer practice on June 23. Their families were being kept at a distance because of fears of infection and the emaciated-looking boys were eating a rice-based porridge because they were still too weak to take regular food, authorities said.
Officials lavished praise on the Thai and international divers who, in pairs of two, executed the dangerous rescue mission, guiding the boys, who could barely swim and had no diving experience, through a treacherous 2 1/2-milelong escape route that twisted and turned through the cavern. Highlighting the extreme dangers, a former Thai Navy SEAL died Friday while replenishing the oxygen canisters laid along the route to the boys’ damp refuge.
But the chances of monsoon rains sending torrents of water into the caves and making the rescue effort too risky is never far from the minds of everyone involved in the operation.
Alluding to that worry, the regional army commander offered his thanks yesterday to the rain god Phra Pirun, imploring him to “keep showing us mercy.”
“Give us three more days and the Boars will come out to see the world, every one of them,” Maj.Gen. Bancha Duriyapan told a news conference.
The plight of the boys, ages 1116, and their coach, has riveted Thailand and much of the world — from the heart-sinking news they were trapped to the first flickering video of the huddle of anxious yet smiling boys brought back by the pair of British divers who found them after penetrating deep into the sprawling cave.
Workers have been laboring around the clock to pump water out of the cave, and officials said yesterday that despite heavy downpours overnight, water levels inside the cave did not rise. More worrying, however, oxygen levels in the chamber where the boys sought refuge were falling.
Chiang Rai province’s acting governor, Narongsak Osatanakorn, who is in charge of the rescue, said yesterday’s rescues involving 18 divers and a support team of 100 had taken nine hours, two fewer than the rescues on Sunday.
“We have more expertise than yesterday,” he said.