Elite divers have rescued the first two of 12 young soccer players and their coach who have been trapped in a flooded cave complex in northern Thailand for more than two weeks, according to Kyodo news agency quoting Thai media reports.

The boys separately emerged from Tham Luang Nang Non cave in Chiang Rai Province between 5:30pm and 6pm local time, Kyodo said.

The boys, two of the “Wild Boars” team that has been stuck in a cramped chamber several kilometres inside the Tham Luang cave complex since June 23, emerged Sunday night after a dangerous mission to extract the group began earlier in the day.

Rescuers said it could take up to four days for the entire team to reach safety, depending on conditions inside the cave.

The mission was launched on Sunday morning because floodwaters inside the cave were at their lowest level in days and rains forecast to hit the region risk flooding the cave again.

[#ff0011]Thirteen foreign divers and five members of Thailand’s elite navy Seal unit have been tasked with bringing the boys – some as young as 11 and weak swimmers – through narrow, submerged passageways that claimed the life of a former Thai navy diver on Friday.[/#ff0011]

Authorities have said it takes roughly 11 hours to do a round-trip from the cave entrance to where the boys are huddled on a muddy bank.

This tallies with previous estimates from officials that it would take the divers five hours to reach the ledge where the team is trapped, and six hours for the journey out.

The water in the cave is muddy and unclear, with one diver comparing it to a cafe latte. Ropes have been installed to help guide the boys through the darkness.

Narongsak Osottanakorn, head of the rescue mission, said two divers would escort each of the boys out of the cave.

The rescue teams had rehearsed the plan for several days, said Narongsak, and they had to move now.

The boys’ plight has transfixed Thailand and the rest of the world.

Initial euphoria over finding them alive quickly turned into deep anxiety as rescuers raced to find a way to get them out, with Narongsak at one point dubbing the effort “Mission Impossible”.

Authorities have highlighted the tiny passageway near T-junction, or Sam Yak in Thai, as the most dangerous element of the journey.

It is a sliver of space 1.9 kilometres (1.2 miles) from the shelf where the boys have been sheltering above the waters.

An Australian doctor who was part of Sunday’s rescue mission checked the health of the boys on Saturday night and gave the all clear for the rescue to proceed.

Authorities had looked at many different ways to save the boys and their coach.

One early potential plan was to leave them there for months until the monsoon season ended and the floods subsided completely, but that idea was scrapped over concerns about falling oxygen levels and waters rising too high.

More than 100 exploratory holes were also bored – some shallow, but the longest 400 metres deep – into the mountainside in an attempt to open a second evacuation route and avoid forcing the boys into the dangerous dive.

American technology entrepreneur Elon Musk even deployed engineers from his private space exploration firm SpaceX and Boring Co. to help.

Meanwhile rescuers fed a kilometres-long air pipe into the cave to restore oxygen levels in the chamber where the team was sheltering with medics and divers.

Agence France-Presse, Reuters, Associated Press, Kyodo


https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/2154313/first-two-boys-rescued-thailand-cave-mission-impossible