No way out – yet
Cave kids may have to swim or wait months
Heavy downpours in Thailand are speeding up the clock already ticking for rescuers trying to save a youth soccer team stuck in a partially flooded cave — all of whom may be forced to swim for their survival.
The Wild Boar soccer team, made up of 12 boys between 11 and 16 years old, and their 25-year-old coach were found by rescue divers late Monday night in a cave in the Northern Chiang Rai Province, bringing a close to the massive and desperate week-long search.
The boys left their backpacks and shoes before “wading in and trying to go to the end of the tunnel, sort of like an initiation for local young boys to… write your name on the wall and make it back,” rescue diver Ben Reymenants told Sky News.
A sudden storm left them trapped.
“We called this ‘mission impossible’ because it rained everyday,” Narongsak Osatanakorn, the governor of the province, said, “but with our determination and equipment, we fought nature.”
Interior Minister Anupong Paochinda, a member of the country’s military leadership, said the young athletes may be forced to swim out with diving equipment through the complicated route by which their rescuers entered.
“The evacuation effort must speed up,” he told the Bangkok Post, noting that several children do not know how to swim.
“Diving gear will be used. If the water rises, the task will be difficult. We must bring the kids out before then.”
With the rainy season in Thailand ramping up, long periods of ongoing downpours are expected to continue well into November. Too much rain, they fear, could completely block off access to the trapped boys.
Engineers have been pumping water out of the cave for the last week and a brief respite from then rain has allowed them to lower water levels inside. By Tuesday they were removing 10,000 liters of water an hour, lowering the water level by about a centimeter within the same time frame, according to the Guardian.