Search and rescue teams are searching for a dozen missing members of a youth soccer team, believed to be trapped in a cave in northern Thailand.
Police said local authorities, police and rescue workers were working with divers to find the 12 boys, aged 11 to 15, and their coach, who were believed to have entered the Tham Luang Nang Non cave in Chiang Rai province on Saturday afternoon.
The group was apparently trapped when a violent storm flooded a stream at the cave’s entrance.
Police Colonel Komsan Saardluan said parts of the cave, which is about 6 to 8 kilometers long, are flooded up to 5 meters high during the rainy season, which lasts from June to October.
Footage broadcast on Thai television showed bicycles and backpacks left at the entrance to the cave.
ThaiPBS television reported that the team members came from various schools in the province and were said to have practiced before heading to the park where the cave is located.
The search began around midnight Saturday after police received a report of a missing child from a mother who said her son did not return from soccer practice that evening, ThaiPBS reported.
The mother last spoke to her son when he told her in the afternoon that he was with the group visiting a cave inside the Tham Luang-Khun Nam Nang Forest Park in Chiang Rai’s Mae Sai district.
Families hope group is still alive
A group of 12 boys missing from a flooded cave in northern Thailand left their bikes and shoes outside the entrance. (AP: Thai News Pix)
Noppadol Kantawong, the father of one of the missing boys, told the program he remains hopeful.
“For now, our family hopes that the children trapped inside will have formed a group and are safe and waiting for the authorities to enter and rescue them in time,” he said.
“That’s what I hope.”
The Navy SEAL divers were trying to reach a large chamber deep in the cave complex, where officials believed the students might be.
Kamolchai Kotcha, an official at the forest park where the cave is located, said this morning that attempts to reach the cave had failed because the passage is extremely small, “flooded and covered in sand and mud.”
Footage broadcast on Thai television showed bicycles, backpacks and soccer shoes abandoned outside the cave entrance.
The area was filled with soldiers and rescue workers.
The cave is a tourist attraction but can be severely flooded during Thailand’s rainy season, which runs from June to October.
Kamolchai said tourists trapped in the cave by past floods were rescued after the waters receded a few days later.
P.A.
