First four boys rescued from cave in northern Thailand
MAE SAI, Thailand – Thai SEAL divers Sunday extracted the first members of a Thai boys’ soccer team from a flooded cave where they had been trapped for two weeks as an operation began to rescue all 12 players and their coach.
Four boys were brought out of the cave, according to the SEALS, who were leading the rescue. The boys were transferred by helicopter and ambulance to a hospital where they were being treated, but officials did not disclose details of their condition.
The acting governor of Chiang Rai province, Narongsak Osatakorn, said the healthiest boys were evacuated first and the operation was going “very smoothly.”
“After 16 days of waiting ... today, we saw the boys’ faces,” Narongsak said.
The operation paused Sunday evening so that rescue teams could refresh the supply of oxygen tanks that have been placed along the escape route inside the cave, Narongsak said. The next phase of the operation would begin 20 hours and “the mission will continue for the remaining boys as soon as possible,” he said.
The first boy emerged from the cave at 5:40 p.m., less than eight hours after the operation began. Officials feared that an incoming storm could send water flooding back into the cave and make an escape even more difficult for the boys, ages 11 to 16, and their 25-year-old coach.
Thirteen foreign divers and five Thai divers were leading the rescue, with each boy accompanied by two divers, officials said. A total of 90 divers, including 50 foreigners, have been involved in the entire operation, Narongsak said.
A Thai army commander said the entire operation could take up to four days. An ambulance carries the first boy to be sent for helicopter evacuation after being rescued from the Tham Luang cave on Sunday in Mae Sai, Chiang Rai, Thailand.
The four boys emerged by 8 p.m., quite a bit ahead of schedule – and all the more remarkable because the boys are novice swimmers, with no diving experience.
The journey was harrowing: a more than one-mile dive through narrow passageways filled with muddy water that renders visibility close to zero and flows so fast in some places that even experienced divers have had to stop or turn back. The Thai SEALS gave the boys crash courses in using diving masks and breathing underwater.
It usually takes divers about five hours from where the boys were to reach chamber three, a dry point where the SEALS have set up a command post, and from which rescue officials said the boys could likely walk the rest of the way.
Underscoring the danger in the fast-moving waters, a former Thai Navy SEAL died on Friday while moving the canisters, reportedly due to lack of oxygen.
The high-risk rescue dive began with a sense of urgency after authorities could not settle on an alternative means of bringing the boys out.
Some officials initially said that the boys could remain where they were – on a dry rock ledge near a point inside the cave known as Pattaya Beach – for up to several months as long as they were supplied with
food and medicines. But authorities became worried in recent days as oxygen levels inside the cave dropped due to a high presence of rescue workers.
Teams have used highpowered pumps to empty more than 100 million of gallons of water out of the cave. On Sunday morning, Thai officials said that water levels were at their lowest point in several days, contributing to the decision to begin the rescue.
The boys and their coach biked to the cave after soccer practice on June 23 and ventured deep inside the six-mile-long cave, a popular tourist attraction but one that is mostly deserted in the summer due to the risks of monsoon rains. A storm arrived while the group was deep inside, where they couldn’t hear the rain, and were trapped when water sloshed into the cave.
They were found a week later by a pair of British volunteer divers who were part of a rescue mission that has drawn divers and experts from around the world – including U.S. military personnel from Japan, bird’s nest collectors who hunted for shafts in the rock face and members of Elon Musk’s Spacex venture.
The Americans on site include an Air Force rescue support team of about 30 divers, survival specialists and medical and logistics experts.
LONDON – A middle-aged British woman, who somehow came into contact with the Soviet-era nerve agent known as Novichok, died Sunday evening at a hospital in south England where she was being treated for exposure to the military-grade chemical weapon.
Prime Minister Theresa May said she was “appalled and shocked by the death,” and announced that it is now being investigated as a murder.
Dawn Sturgess, 44, was one of five people who became seriously ill after being exposed to the nerve agent in the Salisbury area.
Former Russian spy and double agent Sergei Skripal and his adult daughter, Yulia, were poisoned four months ago in what British authorities deemed a deliberate attack. After reviving from comas, both were released from the hospital to an undisclosed location. A police sergeant involved in the investigation of the March incident was also hospitalized for exposure but released shortly thereafter.
Sturgess lived in a supported-living facility that helps residents struggling with alcohol or drug addiction. Police said she was exposed to the chemical last weekend, absorbing it through her hands. She survived eight days.
Her boyfriend Charlie Rowley, 45, was also exposed and became sick a few hours later. Rowley remains in critical condition and in a coma at the Salisbury hospital.
Friends told the British press that Rowley would often search dumpsters for items to barter or sell.
Specialists at the nearby Defense Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down, a military research facility, identified the agent used against the Skripals, Sturgess and Rowley as Novichok.
The U.N. chemical weapons watchdog confirmed the finding in the Skripal case.
The British government blamed Russia for the attack against the Skripals, and senior British officials said such an assault would not have been carried out without Russian President Vladimir Putin’s knowledge.
“Either this was a direct act by the Russian state against our country,” May said in March, “or the Russian government lost control of this potentially catastrophically damaging nerve agent and allowed it to get into the hands of others.”