Thailand cave rescue: It’s important we find them today, say authorities as desperate search for trapped football team continues

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Rescuers have inched closer to finding a teenage football team trapped in a cave for more than week, as a desperate search for their whereabouts continues.

Thai navy Seals looking for the 12 boys and their coach were on Sunday pushing through the murk of a half-mile-long chamber into the sprawling Tham Luang Nang Non cave.

Navy Admiral Arpakorn Yukongkaew said that extracting the boys, who will likely be malnourished and possibly injured, will be a complicated process.

He said: “We still have to find a way to get them out. The important thing is that we want to find them today.”

Thai officials carry oxygen tanks through a cave complex during the rescue operation
EPA

It comes a day after a break in the constant rainfall lowered water levels, bringing hope that the muddy water inside the crucial but clogged chamber would recede, helping divers move forward.

The boys, aged 11 to 16, and their 25-year-old coach entered the in northern Thailand after a football game on June 23.

There is hope they can survive if they have found a dry spot in which to shelter.

However an announcement on the Facebook page of the Thai navy Seal unit shortly before midnight on Saturday said they had penetrated only about 200m – one fifth of the way forward in the crucial chamber, about as far as they had made it earlier in the search before being forced to retreat by rising waters.

An army commander, Major General Bancha Duriyapat, said on Sunday that authorities remain hopeful.

"Overall, it's good. It is good news that rain has stopped. We continue to work in all areas, including pumping the water out from water sources all around the mountain so that we can help those who work inside the cave," he said.

Soldiers and rescue workers work in Tham Luang cave complex
REUTERS

Chaiwat Dusadeepanich of the Department of Groundwater Resources explained on Saturday that his team, which had been drilling for two days, found a small underground water source near the cave.

He said they would keep drilling deeper in order to find a way to release the water at a high rate.

The search has thwarted by flooding which has has blocked rescuers from going through chambers to get deeper into the cave.

Thai soldiers walk down the road leading up to Tham Luang cave at the Khun Nam Nang Non Forest Park
AFP/Getty Images

Pumping out water has not solved the problem, so the attention has focused on finding shafts on the mountainside that might serve as a back door to the blocked-off areas where the missing may be sheltering.

Teams have been combing the mountainside looking for fissure that might lead to such shafts.

Several have been found and explorers have been able to descend into some, but so far it is not clear whether they lead to anywhere useful.

Soldiers and rescue workers work in Tham Luang cave complex
REUTERS

Experts in cave rescues from around the world have continued to gather at the site.

An official Australian group has now followed a US military team, British cave experts, Chinese lifesaving responders and several other volunteer groups from various countries.

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