Rescuers to take no risks in rescue of Thai boys

MAE SAI, Thailand: Thai rescuers vowed to take a “no risk” approach to freeing 12 boys and their football

video emerged on Wednesday showing the team in good spirits following their astonishing discovery nine days after going missing.

Freeing the boys from the still-submerged cave complex is expected to be a protracted process, fraught with challenges for a group who are not divers and some of whom are believed to be unable to swim.

With a country glued to the rescue mission, authorities insist they will only move the boys once their safety can be guaranteed, even though monsoon rains are predicted to soon resume.

“We have to be 100 percent confident that there is no risk to the boys before we evacuate,” Narongsak Osottanakorn, Chiang Rai provincial governor, told reporters on Wednesday.

“We will take care of them like they are our own children,” he said, adding efforts to install a telephone line failed late Tuesday, but food, medicine and relief gear continues to be ferried into the caves.

Authorities are also pumping out water round-the-clock aware of the bad weather forecast in the days ahead.

“We want to evacuate all 13 people as soon as possible but I don’t want to specify a day and date,” Thailand’s junta leader Prayut Chan-O-Cha said later.

In a heartening message to families waiting in outside the cave, footage was released by the Thai Navy SEAL featuring 11 of the 12-strong team.

Each made a traditional Thai greeting gesture to the camera before introducing themselves by their nickname and saying “I’m in good health.”

Several of the boys in the frame are wearing protective foil blankets and are accompanied by a smiling diver in a wetsuit.

Also seen is the 25- year- old coach, who went with the boys down the cave after football training on June 23.