INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Distraught relatives and friends gathered at the mouth of the cave
(Reuters)CHIANG RAI, Thailand: Thai rescue workers will drill a narrow shaft into a cave where 12 schoolboys and their soccer coach are
believed to be trapped by flood waters, Thailand's interior minister said on Wednesday, the fourth day of a search that has been hampered by
heavy rain.The boys, aged between 11 and 16, and their 25-year-old assistant coach, went missing on Saturday after soccer practice when they
set out to explore the Tham Luang cave complex, even though it is known to be prone to flooding in the rainy season.Thai volunteers and
military teams, including 45 navy SEAL unit members, have been deployed at the flooded cave complex, which runs 10 km (6 miles) under a
mountain in the northern province of Chiang Rai."Tomorrow we can drill into the mountain but we won't drill too deep
Just enough to allow people through," interior minister Anupong Paochinda told reporters in Bangkok."We are trying every way to find the
children," he said.While distraught relatives and friends gathered at the mouth of the cave, rescue workers pumped out water, but persistent
heavy rain has slowed their progress."Water is the biggest challenge
There is a lot of debris and sand that gets stuck while pumping," Army officer Sergeant Kresada Wanaphum told Reuters."We have to switch out
units because there is not enough air in there," he said before heading back down the cave.According to messages the boys exchanged before
setting off, they had taken flashlights and some food.Apart from some footprints and marks left by their muddy hands near the cave entrance,
nothing has been seen or heard of them since Saturday evening, and the race to find them has dominated Thai news."I'm confident all are
still alive," Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha told reporters.'MASSIVE AMOUNTS' OF WATERVern Unsworth, a British cave explorer based in
Chiang Rai who has joined the search, said a lot of water was seeping into the cave from two directions."There is a watershed inside, which
It means there is water coming in from two directions," Unsworth told Reuters
"The biggest challenge is the water
Massive amounts."Three divers coming from Britain were expected to reach Thailand on Wednesday evening to join the search, the interior
military has sent a search and rescue team at the request of the Thai government, Lieutenant Commander Nicole Schwegman, a spokeswoman for
Indo-Pacific Command, told Reuters.Thailand has asked the United States for survivor detection equipment, Tourism Minister Weerasak Kowsurat
said."We hope this equipment will allow us to locate the spots that we need to reach faster," Weerasak told reporters.A guide book described
the Tham Luang cave as having an "impressive entrance chamber" leading to a marked path
It then described the end of the path and start of a series of chambers and boulders."This section of the cave has not been thoroughly
After a couple of hundred metres the cave reduces in size to a mud floored passage 2 metres wide and 3 metres high," author Martin Ellis
wrote in "The Caves of Thailand Volume 2."Nopparat Kantawong, the head coach of the team who did not attend practice on Saturday, said the
boys had visited the caves several times, and he was hopeful they would stick together and stay strong."They won't abandon each other,"
Nopparat told reporters.© Thomson Reuters 2018
