Thailand cave rescue: Diver says ‘none of the boys can swim’ as the threat of rain threatens rescue efforts
THE evacuation of 12 boys and their soccer coach from an underground cave in northern Thailand could begin as early as tomorrow, it has been claimed.
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THAI navy SEALs could begin the evacuation of 12 young boys and their soccer coach from a flooded cave in northern Thailand as early as tomorrow.
After a day of sustained pumping efforts, water levels inside the massive cave complex have ben reduced and fierce currents have eased, The Australian reports.
The Australian reports it has been told that fast-water currents inside the cave have eased to a standstill and with monsoonal rains expected to resume by Friday, conditions for the rescue are as good as they are likely to get.
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Picture: Thai NavySeal
Royal Thai Navy SEALs have been teaching the boys and their coach — none of whom can swim — how to breathe in a full face scuba mask.
Earlier, new footage released by the Royal Thai Navy has revealed the state of the cave-tapped Thai soccer team.
The teenagers appeared to be in good spirits in the video captured yesterday, which showed the 12 boys wrapped in blankets talking to Thai Navy SEAL divers.
“After eating, they have more energy,” the Navy wrote as the caption.
Two doctors have volunteered to stay with the boys as rescuers fret about volatile weather conditions.
Earlier, it was reported that the boys could be stuck in the cave until the monsoon season ends in October.
It is understood rescue teams have been pumping 10,000 litres of water out of the caves every hour, but there are concerns more rain could threaten the air pocket where the team has taken refuge.
Picture: Getty Images
Top Thai Navy officer Commander Rear Adm. Arpakorn Yookongkaew said there was “no need to hurry”, and the soccer team would be brought out when they were physically and mentally ready, the Bangkok Post reported.
“It may be four months, one month or one week. There’s no need to hurry,” he said.
“The first plan is to reduce the water level and get them out but if we can’t, we will have a backup plan.
“Anyone who is ready first will be brought out. They will be brought out gradually,” he added. Safety is the priority.”
But the weather forecast alarmed others, according to the Bangkok Post, including Thailand’s Interior Minister Anupong Paojinda, who said the mission was a race against time.
“As rain is forecast in the next few days, the evacuation must be sped up. Diving gear will be used. If the water rises, the task will be difficult. We must bring the kids out before then,” Gen Anupong said.
The water and food-starved soccer team have had four days of worth of food supplies delivered to them, according to the Bankgok Post, as well as rejuvenating mineral salts and 70 oxygen tanks.
And after having no contact with the outside world for 10 days, the young boys are now able to contact their parents after phone cables were brought into the area.
WHY THE SOCCER TEAM WENT INTO THE CAVE
It is believed the soccer team ventured into the flooded network of caves in northern Thailand as part of an “initiation” ritual, according to one of the divers who found them.
“They left their backpacks and their shoes before wading in there, trying to go the end of the tunnel like an initiation for local young boys to go to the end of the tunnel and write your name on the wall and then make it back,” Dutch diver Ben Reymenants, who runs a diving school in Phuket, told Sky News.
“A flash flood because of sudden heavy rain locked them in, with no shoes and no food. They had just one flashlight, which obviously ran out.”
Reymenants was part of a rescue team that reached the 12 boys, aged 11 to 16, and their coach inside the Tham Luang cave network on Monday — 10 days after they went missing, reports the New York Post.
Officials are still weighing up whether to teach the boys to swim and scuba dive so they can escape before heavy rains hit in the next few days — or leave them in there for months until the water recedes.
Swimming out will be incredibly difficult, Reymenants explained.
“This is one of the more extreme cave dives that I have done. It is very far, and very complex. There is current. The visibility can be zero at times. So getting boys through there one by one, and the risk that they will panic is there,” he told Sky, adding that the swim will be over two kilometres.
“It is not impossible, but the issue is the restrictions — just one person can fit through. So guiding a boy through in front of you could be quite challenging, especially if the rain picks up and there’s a strong flow and the visibility reduces to zero. When it starts raining, the flow is so hard, you can barely swim against it.”
Right now the kids are too weak for the herculean task anyway, he said. Thai navy doctors arrived in the cave on Tuesday and have been feeding them nutrient-rich food.
“First the boys need to get their strength again, because right now they can’t do anything at all. They have muscle atrophy, they can barely stand up,” Reymenants told Sky.
If they do decide to wait it out, two navy medics have volunteered to stay with the team — with plenty of food and medical supplies — inside the cave for the three or four months it will take for the water to drop, he added.
COACH COULD ‘FACE CHARGES’
It comes as the youth soccer coach who led his team into the caves could face charges for putting the boys in danger, according to a report.
Officials are looking into whether to charge the 25-year-old coach of the Wild Boars, identified in local outlets as Ekapol Chanthawong, with negligence for bringing the boys on an excursion into the Tham Luang cave after their practice on June 23, reports the New York Post.
“We have to study the matter carefully first,” Colonel Komsan Saard-an, chief of the Mae Sai Police Station, told the Khaosod English paper overnight, when asked if charges were forthcoming.
Some residents said the coach should have been more prudent.
“The coach, too. He should be more careful when taking kids of other people to places. He had a duty to be responsible for those kids,” someone wrote on a popular Thai Facebook page.
But a local criminal lawyer said Chanthawong couldn’t have foreseen that the cave would flood, trapping him and his team for days.
“In my opinion, he had no intent. Before they went inside, the rain hadn’t started yet. And they went there often, so they must have thought there wouldn’t be any problem,” lawyer Ananchai Chaiyadech said. “The law also looks at intent.”
The team is known to go on frequent outings together, including cycling on mountain roads, swimming in waterfalls — and exploring caves, their families said.
HEAVY RAINS COULD SLOW RESCUE
Thai officials warned heavy rains forecast for the coming days could worsen floods in a mountain cave, forcing authorities to speed up their extraction of the boys and their coach.
Rescuers have appealed for 15 small and extra small full face masks, fuelling speculation that divers are preparing to lead them to safety through a 750-metre flooded stretch of the Tham Luang Nang Non cave.
A rescuer told reporters that it was too dangerous to use conventional breathing apparatus as this could easily be knocked out during the dive.
Officials said the 13 are mostly in stable medical condition and have received high-protein liquid food after they were located in the cave in northern Chiang Rai province during a desperate search that has transfixed the world.
Thai navy SEALs say the boys and their coach are healthy. Commander Rear Adm. Arpakorn Yookongkaew said seven members of his unit — including a doctor and a nurse — are now with the team.
He told a press conference that his team members “have given the boys food, starting from easily digested and high-powered food with enough minerals”.
He said that having the rescued people dive out of the cave was one of several options being considered. If it were employed, he said they “have to be certain that it will work and have to have a drill to make that it’s 100 per cent safe.”
According to Thai media reports, a first meal of pork and rice was prepared for the boys with rescuers signalling that sealed portions of the dish will be taken to the team.
“A telephone line will be installed tonight … (the boys) will be able to talk with their families via military phone,” Passakorn Boonyarat, deputy governor of Chiang Rai province, told reporters late on Tuesday.
He refused to speculate on how long they might be trapped, but explained that while there are enough provisions for four months, anyone fit and able to leave the cave would be evacuated as soon as possible.
“Any boys who are ready can come out first,” via “chamber three” a cavern being used as a base to store food, oxygen tanks and diving gear as well as plan the complex logistics of how to move 13 weak and inexperienced divers out of a partially-submerged cave.
BOYS ‘MAY HAVE TO SWIM OUT’
Interior Minister Anupong Paojinda said that the boys may need to swim out using diving equipment ahead of bad weather forecast for later in the week. He said the boys would be brought out via the same complicated route through which their rescuers entered.
While efforts are to pump out the floodwaters continue, Anupong said it’s clear some areas cannot be drained and in order to get out, the boys may need to use diving gear while being guided by two professional divers each. He conceded that if something went awry, it could be disastrous.
“Diving is not easy. For people who have never done it, it will be difficult, unlike diving in a swimming pool, because the cave’s features have small channels,” he said. “If something happens midway it could be life-threatening.”
Earlier, the Australian Federal Police, who are helping with the rescue mission, said conditions inside the cave were proving “incredibly challenging”.
“Our Specialist Response Group dive team have been diving shortly after arrival (in Chiang Rai) and one of the difficulties they face is a very flooded cave system, it’s very difficult to see and move through that system,” Detective Superintendent Thomas Hester told reporters in Canberra.
“There are a lot of small, tight areas where larger size people, especially with equipment, may have trouble moving through.”
Detective Superintendent Hester said it would be extremely difficult for the divers to bring the boys back with them.
“The ability to try to pull the boys through those areas with any diving equipment is incredibly challenging,” he said.
TEAM TRAPPED BY HIGH WATER LEVELS
The 12 boys were members of the Moo Pa soccer team, which directly translates to wild boar.
They were said to have regularly visited the cave in the district of Mae Sai for training and recreation.
Video released by the Thai navy showed the boys in their soccer uniforms sitting on a dry area inside the cave above the water as a spotlight from the British cave divers who found them illuminated their faces.
Richard Stanton and John Volanthen used specialist diving techniques and risked their own lives to tackle the two-kilometre underground labyrinth.
Chiang Rai provincial Gov. Narongsak Osatanakorn said the health of the boys and coach were checked using a field assessment in which red is critical condition, yellow is serious and green is stable.
“We found that most of the boys are in green condition,” he said. “Maybe some of the boys have injuries or light injuries and would be categorised as yellow condition. But no one is in red condition.”
Thailand’s leader thanked the international community for their support and assistance in the search and rescue operation.
Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-Ocha said on Tuesday that finding the boys “has created gratitude and happiness for people all over the country.”
He said: “I have to thank the international community in assisting us. This would not have been possible if we didn’t help each other. Everybody did their part.”
Originally published as Thailand cave rescue: Diver says ‘none of the boys can swim’ as the threat of rain threatens rescue efforts
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