How the cave rescue of 12 trapped boys will take place
AS RESCUERS prepare to save 12 boys from the flooded cave, two are reportedly suffering from exhaustion due to malnutrition, making things even harder.
TETHERED to a frogman, with a static guide rope and stage tanks along the passage, the 12 trapped Thai schoolboys will attempt to escape the cave where they are trapped in a perilous rescue mission.
The treacherous four-hour journey to safety will take at least two days of continuous individual rescues. And the dangerous task could be further complicated by health issues, with two boys and their coach reportedly suffering from exhaustion due to malnutrition.
To prepare for their journey out of the cave system, each 11- to 16-year-old will first be fitted with a wetsuit, aqua boots, a helmet and a scuba mask.
Each boy will be briefed on what is about to take place to help minimise the risk of panic, and escorted by two Thai Navy SEALs as they make their risky exit.
Instead of having their own scuba tanks, the boys will have to rely on an individual navy rescue diver’s air supply shared with them along the way.
The divers will use a static rope attached to the cave walls to help guide each boy one-by-one through the cave system of completely flooded chambers and those with air pockets.
“Stage tanks” have been placed every 25-50m along the linked system of cave chambers so that the boys can get extra air if needed.
The flooded passage passing through the linked caves is filled with hazardous bends and next to no visibility, with water in some parts being described as “black coffee”.
The passage is the biggest challenge facing the trapped schoolboys as authorities race to drain water from the flooded Tham Luang Nang Non cave in northern Thailand’s Chiang Rai province.
As part of a desperate attempt to save the boys, Thai authorities are also trying to confirm whether there is a secret passage to safety.
The world was watching with bated breath as it was hoped an attempt to free the 12 starved boys and their 25-year-old football coach would be made on Thursday. However, the rescue operation has been postponed at least another day.
“We hope that today or tomorrow the water level between the third chamber and the point that the students are at will decrease more,” a senior Thai rescue official said, according to Fairfax.
“The water level between the third chamber and the boys is still high. We put the tubes at the third chamber, trying to get the water out as much as possible.”
The boys are reportedly being trained in how to breathe with scuba equipment.
But diving experts have warned that the mission is extremely dangerous as the boys can’t swim and have never used scuba gear, and the cave’s narrow passageways pose a significant challenge for even the best cave divers.
A narrow 3km flooded stretch of the Tham Luang Nang Non cave, which took experienced cave divers about three hours to navigate, poses an ominous hurdle for the inexperienced boys in the desperate rescue plan.
British Cave Rescue Council chairman Gary Mitchell told the BBC that freezing, muddy water was touching the roof of the cave inside the pitch black passage, which is extremely narrow — so much so that it is only big enough to fit one person through at a time.
A Thai diving website, Digitalay, has posted a sketch that shows how divers must tackle the dangerous 3km stretch.
Volunteers holding a rope guideline would be submerged by 10m at each flooded point in the passage and divers would have to dismount their scuba kits to stand any chance of getting through.
As each boy is dragged through the dangerous passage while closely tethered to a diver navigating the tight nooks and crannies, there is a risk of their gear being knocked off.
The diving site reported that Belgian cave diver Ben Reymenants, who owns a business in Phuket, had discovered and placed a guideline in a new, wider channel with occasional air pockets, which should make the extraction easier and safer.
SECRET PASSAGE COULD SAVE THE BOYS
This morning, Claus Rasmussen, who is part of the rescue team, said the boys had told divers they heard dogs barking, a rooster crowing and children playing — raising suspicions that there may be a hidden passage to safety from deep within the cave.
According to CNN, the new information now has teams looking at whether there was a chimney or hole they could access instead of trying to get the boys out through the water.
If there does in fact turn out to be a secret passage, rescuers could sidestep the incredibly dangerous crash-course diving operation.
Timing is crucial in the complex rescue mission as heavy storms are soon forecast to arrive, which could make it impossible to evacuate the group for months.
A 24/7 draining operation is now in place, but Thai authorities are still understood to be weighing up the best method of extracting the boys. The best option would be to rid the cave almost entirely of water, which would allow the stranded group to crawl 4km to safety, but they would still need to pass through short underwater passages.
However, because of the looming monsoon rains forecast to hit the area later this week, Thai authorities still believe teaching the boys to dive so they can be escorted out of the system by rescue divers is the most realistic option.
This could take several months and today, rescue teams have been busy trying to install an internet cable to the cave so parents can talk to their trapped children.
A certified cave diver from the US said the boys would have to undergo “immediate and intensive training” if they were to stand any chance of exiting the cave alive.
“Normal cave diving requires skills that go beyond what 99 per cent of the world’s divers have ever seen, which is why it is so very hard to become certified to dive in caves,” John Adsit wrote in an educational journal this morning. “The diving required in this cave, however, is not normal cave diving, and the rescuers are not normal cave divers.
“The greatest enemy to a diver is panic. Students who are accustomed to the normal mishaps of swimming, like accidentally getting water in the mouth or eyes, will usually have no trouble, but for people with little swimming experience, such a minor event can lead to irrational panic.
“Most of the Thai team members are nonswimmers, and the culture there has a common belief that swimming is extremely dangerous. That starts any training in a serious deficit.”
A cave explorer assisting Thai authorities trying to rescue the schoolboys believes “we’ll know in the next 24 hours” if they will survive.
British cave expert Vern Unsworth, who lives in Thailand, said the conditions were getting worse and there was now a narrow window in which the group could escape.
“I think we’ll know in the next 24 hours … We’ll keep our fingers crossed, everybody needs to pray and hope for a good outcome,” Mr Unsworth told the BBC.
TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE
A firefighter who has been working on draining the water told AP that levels in parts of a passage leading to a chamber where the boys and the coach were found was still flooded all the way to the ceiling, making diving the only way out.
“What we worry most is the weather,” Chiang Rai provincial Governor Narongsak told reporters. “We can’t risk having the flood back into the cave.”
He said he asked Thai Navy SEALs in charge of extraction plans to estimate what sort of a risk would be involved to take them out and “what kind of readiness we can have today and decide if we can take that chance.”
Earlier today, he said that not all 13 may be extracted at the same time, depending on their condition. He said that the boys have been practising wearing diving masks and breathing, but he doesn’t believe they have attempted any practice dives.
Officials have said they would prefer to get the boys out as soon as possible because heavy rain is expected to start by Saturday, which almost surely will raise water levels again in the cave, making passage in some areas even more difficult, if not impossible.
They are hoping that an upgraded draining effort can lower the water level in an area where it is still at the ceiling or close to it. The idea is to get some headroom so the boys would not be reliant on scuba apparatuses for a long stretch and could keep their heads above water.
A new doctor’s reports shows two of the boys and the coach are suffering with exhaustion from malnutrition, CNN reported.
AUSTRALIA’S ROLE IN THE RESCUE
Australia has sent a further three specialists to help with the rescue, it was announced this morning.
Australian Federal Police Specialist Response Group divers have helped deliver the boys blankets and enough supplies to last two weeks.
“The AFP dive team and Australian support staff remain closely engaged in efforts to support and sustain the group, as well as in planning,” said the AFP in a statement. “This includes supporting the Royal Thai Navy to transport food, water and first aid supplies into the cave system through to the group.
“The team are also working with the Royal Thai Navy and international responders to put in place air tanks and diving equipment, which will be necessary to safely evacuate the group.
“This is being undertaken in challenging conditions and in tight areas that can be difficult to manoeuvre through.”
CHILEAN MINER’S MESSAGE
Mario Sepulveda, one of the Chilean miners who was trapped underground for 69 days in 2010 made a video message for the boys this morning.
“Hang in there,” he told them, appearing dressed in a yellow vest, orange miner’s helmet and headlamp.
He said he was trying to raise funds to travel to Thailand himself and help the rescue effort however he can.
“I’m going to see what’s possible. I’m calling someone from the (Chilean) government to try to get some money together. I think it’s important as a country for us to be there, after what we miners went through,” he told AFP.
“I would love to go. I think it would be extremely important to support the families, give them a hug. Words of encouragement are important.”
“We have to be 100 per cent confident that there is no risk to the boys before we evacuate,” Narongsak Osottanakorn, Chiang Rai provincial governor, told reporters.
“We will take care of them like they are our own children,” he said. The group are being taught how to use diving masks and breathing apparatus, he added, but from the safety of the muddy bank which for now remains their sanctuary.
‘DON’T BLAME THE COACH’
The mothers of two of the trapped boys posted a Facebook video saying people should not blame the coach.
“I never blame Ake, I love him like my brother, by heart. This guy is very good and he taking care of my boy so well,” one of the women said.
A second mother added: “I don’t want anyone [to] blame Ake at all. I knew him since my son was very young. He’s sincerely loving and taking care of my son.”
WHY THEY WENT INTO THE CAVE
The reason the boys entered the cave, according to a jungle cave dive expert Mr Reymenants, was to write their names on the wall as part of an initiation ritual.
The diver, who is assisting with the rescue, told Sky News he believed the boys were in the cave as part of a football initiation ritual.
He said the boys left their backpacks and shoes, and believes the boys waded in and tried to make it 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”.
However, Thai police have refused to answer questions on whether the 25-year-old coach should be charged for leading the children into the cave, the Khaosod English paper reports.
VIDEO OF LAUGHING BOYS
Despite the imminent danger, the children have appeared in a new video, laughing as they greet the camera to say they are in good health.
The footage, published on the Thai Navy SEAL Facebook page, runs by 11 of the 13 members of the team. Each makes a traditional Thai greeting gesture to the camera before introducing themselves by nickname and saying, “I’m in good health.”
Some appeared to be wearing a change of clothes since they were found late Monday and most were wrapped in foil warming blankets.
Assessment results from a SEAL medic indicated the boys are in better physical and psychological health, and were even trying to help with the scuba tanks, according to an update posted on diving site Digitalay’s Facebook page.
The first group of dive teams are slowly being replaced by newer ones, with five divers on stand by to assist.
MOMENT THE BOYS WERE FOUND ALIVE
Rick Stanton and John Volanthen, two expert cave divers from Britain, found the group about 300-400m past a section of the cave on higher ground that was believed to be where they might have taken shelter.
In the five-minute navy video, the boys are seen wearing their soccer uniforms and are calm, curious and polite.
They are also keen to get some food.
After an initial exchange in which a rescuer determines that all 13 are present, one of the boys asks what day it was, and a rescuer replies: “Monday. Monday. You have been here — 10 days.”
The rescuer tells them, “You are very strong.”
The traditional reserve of Thai children toward adults breaks slightly after a while, and one boy tells another in Thai: “Tell them we are hungry.”
“We haven’t eaten,” a boy says in Thai, then in English: “We have to eat, eat, eat!”
A rescuer assures them that “Navy SEALs will come tomorrow, with food and doctors and everything.”
At the end of the video, a boy asks in English, “Where do you come from?”
The rescue diver replied, “England, UK.”
Besides the protein drink, Narongsak said the boys were given painkillers and antibiotics, which doctors had advised as a precaution.
— with wires
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