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MissJoy29:
So they can be seen now?
I don't understand.

No, helmets of the rescue team.

Heat imaging drones are also being used to search the hilly terrain above the cave system.

Drilling to open up a new access point should start Saturday, when rescuers expect to receive results of a scan of the mountain, which they hope will reveal the most promising sites.

Earlier, trekking teams found a vertical shaft that appeared to lead into the cave and dropped in food and drinking water, in case the group was nearby, Thanya Netithamkul, director general of the national park, wildlife and plants department said.

The terrain is tough going mountainous and heavily forested, slowing down teams looking for other possible points of entry, and the rains across that region have been "relentless," according to CNN meteorologist Derek Van Dam.

"It is the southwest monsoon and the rainfall continues to come," he said, which further complicates the rescue efforts.





Pictured, special equipment used by the rescue able to transmit live video from the camera mounted their helmets and trekkers/rescue operation navigating thick jungle and difficult underfoot conditions in the trek to look for other possible points of entry into the cave.

The saga of the missing team has gripped the nation as rescue efforts snowballed from a small local team to a multinational emergency response.

Forces from the U.S. and Australia have arrived to support Thai authorities, as well as technical experts from the U.K., Belgium and Israel.

The boys are believed to have entered the cave after practice with their assistant coach, 25-year-old Ekkapol Chantawong, on what was meant to be roughly a five-hour trek.
Lalasticlala, Mynd44
But monsoon rains flooded several chambers, preventing their exit.

Their bicycles and cleats were later discovered abandoned at the mouth of the cave.


Authorities brought in submersible pumps to drain the passage, but new rains kept filling the chambers back up.

Rescuers then began looking for alternatives, scouring the hillside with drones and sheer manpower for fissures that could provide another entry to a large chamber called Pattaya where it is hoped they have found refuge.

Water pumps, brought from the capital of Bangkok and designed to alleviate major flooding in the city, have been working relentlessly to ease water levels inside the passageways.

Chiang Rai Governor Narongsak Osotthanakorn told CNN the heavy duty water pumps have made a difference, but the rain continues to be a significant factor.

"We are in the rainy season, but the amount of rain we are facing is very unusual.

It rained (on June 27) from 8 p.m. until 1 a.m.

Our teams who were working inside the cave had to withdraw to the mouth of the cave," he said.

"We just can't fight with the water."

It's not the first time people have disappeared inside the cave for an extended period of time and survived.


According to unconfirmed local news reports, a former village headman in the area of Tham Luang said that in 1974, a group of foreign hikers had become trapped in the same cave for seven days.

However conditions then were dry.

Narongsak was still hopeful that even after seven days, with so many elements against them, the boys and their coach will survive.
"We have hope they are alive," he said.

"If you asked me if they are alive, I would say we have hope."
Pipat Bhodi had a birthday last Sunday.

His father Pinyo told CNN that the family had planned a surprise party for Pipat. A cake for the birthday boy remains untouched.


"We need a miracle," Pipat's father Pinyo said. "I want him back."


Pictured, water pump, rescue team pumping out water from the flooded cave and Thai soldiers relaying electric and communication cable deep into the entrance of the Tham Luang Nang Non cave network.

On Friday, Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha visited the rescue site, where some 840 soldiers, 90 members of a special forces unit, four helicopters, excavators and disaster relief equipment have been dedicated to the rescue effort.


“Whatever can be done, do it, the government will back it,”

Thailand's energy ministry said it would supply drills for an operation focused on creating cavities in the side of the mountain to try to locate the team.

The environment ministry said it would donate x-ray machines for scanning purposes.



On Friday morning, workers said a narrow opening in the hills above the cave might be a potential access point.

British cave experts entered the natural chimney Friday morning and managed to descend to a depth of about 20 meters (65 feet).

Rescuers believe dropping in from above is a more promising option to reach the tunnels because it is not blocked by floodwaters.

Meanwhile, the rain continued to beat down, preventing helicopters from searching for possible hidden entry points, and drones from sweeping the 10 kilometers (6 miles) stretch looking for heat signatures.

Even as workers pumped water and mud out of the cave, the rain persisted, complicating efforts.

Vernon Unsworth, a British caver and longtime resident in Chiang Rai, who has explored the cave before, told CNN water was the greatest danger.

"Physically, it's not a hard cave, it's just very long and it has big passages, small passages," he said.

"It's not difficult but if the children have gone in too far then the floodwaters from the far end will be coming through.

With the rain, it's not making it any easier."

"I feel I have just lost my heart when I found his bag, mobile phone and his shoes," said Prajak Sutham's father Sudsakorn.

"But all I can do is wait."

The boys are close to each other and their coach, said Noppadon Kanthawong, one parent whose son plays on the team, but who'd decided to skip Saturday's cave trip.

"He would be there at the field waiting for the kids to show up after school," he told CNN.

"It's a great way to keep healthy, away from screens, and have friends.

I can tell that they are very close to each other," Noppadon said.

Noppadon and his son huddled with other teammates at the entrance to the cave, waiting for any word on the rest of the Wild Boars team.

It was hours later that a ranger from the national park in Chiang Rai Province alerted authorities, when he noticed the bikes still chained up after the park had closed.

Search and rescue efforts began soon after.

The boys, aged between 11 and 16, and their coach, have now been missing for a week.

Emergency services working frantically to find them have spent the past few days dropping food down holes they find in the jungle-covered mountain in the hope it connects with the caves below.

Volunteers help pump water out of the cave entrance.

Search and rescue teams from the US military have arrived at the Thai government's request to help with the effort, along with British underwater cave experts.

Thai Navy Seals with diving gear have swum some five kilometers (3 miles) into the pitch-black passageways to try to find the boys and returned without a sense of where they might be.

Around 1,000 Navy SEAL divers, police, soldiers, border guards with sniffer dogs and officials have been mobilised for the around-the-clock rescue in a remote border mountainous province near the Laos and Myanmar borders.

There's not been a sound from the missing boys all this time.

Their families are frantic.

Deeper inside, the passages narrow into places the locals warn it's not safe to go.

For reasons unknown, the boys and their coach ventured on, deeper into the cave network, past signs that warn people not to enter during the rainy season, which usually begins in July.

They forged ahead as the ceilings dropped and the pathways contracted.

They'd clocked three kilometers (1.8 miles) by the time they reached a fork in the passageway.

To the left, a longer trek, but an exit point at the end.

To the right, higher ground, where a chimney-like chute made of rock jutting straight up out of the mountain was the only way out.

They took off their backpacks and their shoes.

Outside, it began to rain.




Pictured, a pair of boot and other belongings of the team were found deep in the cave.

Around 1 p.m. Saturday, 23rd June, 2018, the weather was clear when Prajak Sutham, 14, Pipat Bhodi, 15, and some of their soccer teammates chained their bikes to a rail at the entrance of the cave, hooked their backpacks over their shoulders, and hiked into Tham Luang Nang Non cave in the mountains of northern Thailand.

The 12 boys, members of the Wild Boars soccer team, and their 25-year-old coach, had explored inside the cave before.
Popular with tourists, it's a place locals know well.


For the first kilometer (600 yards) or so inside the cavernous entrance, limestone rock formations hug high ceilings, creating an almost amphitheater-like atmosphere.




https://edition.cnn.com/2018/06/29/asia/search-thai-cave-boys-intl/index.html
Lalasticlala, Mynd44

Reactions

Emergency rescue teams gather in the staging area as they continue the search for a young soccer team and their coach believed to be missing in the large cave.

Bicycles left by a group of boys and their coach who went missing line the entrance to a cave.

U.S. Special Operations Command Pacific Search and Rescue team personnel walk in a cave where a young soccer team and their coach are believed to be missing, Thursday, June 28, 2018.

Thai PM visits cave where youth soccer team feared trapped.


“Whatever can be done, do it, the government will back it,” said Prayuth.

“I’m not worried about the work of the staff but I’m worried about time elapsed for those lost inside the cave … I’ve come to give everyone encouragement.”

International rescue teams, including one sent by the United States Pacific Command (PACOM), are helping the Thai army, navy and police in a search operation that has been hampered by heavy rain.




The team abandoned their bike near the entrance of the cave.

Soldiers and rescue workers carry a water pump to the Tham Luang cave complex June 28, 2018.

Rescue workers are seen in Tham Luang caves during a search for 12 members of an under-16 soccer team and their coach, in the northern province of Chiang Rai, Thailand, June 27, 2018.

Prayer offerings are displayed as rescue workers continue the search for the young soccer team and their coach.

Relatives of 12 young soccer team members and their coach pray for their rescue after going missing in the large cave.

In this photo released by the Thailand Department of National Parks and Wildlife, Wednesday, June 27, 2018, rescue personnel search for alternate entrances to a cave where 12 boys of a soccer team and their coach went missing in Mae Sai, Chiang Rai, northern Thailand.

Rain is continuing to fall and water levels keep rising inside a cave in northern Thailand, frustrating the search for the boys and their coach who have been missing since Saturday.


Thai soldiers bring hoses and additional water pumps to continue the search for 12 young soccer team members and their coach after going missing in Tham Luang Nang Non cave in Mae Sai, Chiang Rai province, northern Thailand Wednesday, June 27, 2018.


Their bikes can be seen abandoned in the cave.

U.S. Military and British cave experts landed in Thailand to join the search and rescue.


The map of the cave .

.

Senior Thai government officials warned Wednesday that time is running out to rescue teenage boys and their soccer coach, believed trapped in a flooded cave complex in northern Thailand for days, and that the search to find other entry points into the cave system has taken on a new urgency.

"We will try to find other ways apart from underwater rescue because the clock is ticking," Thai Interior Minister Anupong Paochinda said.

No new evidence of the boys' location or condition has been found, other than their bikes, bags, shoes, and foot prints discovered earlier this week, army Maj. Gen. Chalongchai Chaiyakum told journalists.

The group is from the city of Chiang Rai, near the caves where the boys are suspected of being trapped.
They have been missing since at least early Saturday afternoon when a park officer spotted bicycles parked idly by the entrance to the cave complex despite it being off-limits.

Those bikes have been gathered and grouped together as the boys' families await news.

The boys and their coach are believed to have crawled into the large series of caves through a narrow, 15-meter-long (50-foot) channel.

A sign at the entrance to the cave a popular tourist attraction warns of danger during the rainy season, which is just getting underway.

Around 1,000 Navy SEAL divers, police, soldiers, border guards with sniffer dogs and officials have been mobilised for the around-the-clock rescue in a remote border mountainous province near the Laos and Myanmar borders.

A team of American military personnel from the US Pacific Command, including pararescue and survival specialists, arrived at the site overnight to help rescue operations, according to an embassy spokeswoman.

"Operators are trained in personnel recovery tactics and techniques and procedures,"


Three British cave diving experts arrived at the scene late Wednesday and entered the cave in full kit before emerging about an hour later.

"We've got a job to do," diver John Volanthen said as he went into the tunnel, declining to speak further.


Border guards with police dogs scoured the site for new openings into the cave,which is several kilometres (miles) long.Families brought clothing belonging to the kids to help the sniffer dogs find the team.

Search teams found three new holes this week, but only one of the chimneys was accessible.

The Tham Luang cave is a popular draw for local visitors during the dry season, though a sign at the entrance warns tourists not to enter during the wet seasonfrom July to November.

Official said the football team and their coach Ekkapol Janthawong have been in the cave before and know the site well.


The complex cave is infamous for being a tough site for skilled divers because of its complicated network of tunnels and pools.

somehow:
Just see the one that happenes in Berger today. Avoidable deaths. Why are we Nigerians killing ourselves? We are just too careless.

Well, tanker can explode anytime, and anywhere. Even in the developed countries (Pictured, LosAngeles Highway), only God can protect one from that as long as you the highway daily.

Imagine something like this in Apapa traffic, that's why am not alway comfortable when i spot tankers or container trucks very close to me in the traffic.


But these kids, i don't know why they entered that cave.

Ishilove:
This is disturbing

Really sis, can't imagine how they feel right now if they're still alive.

somehow:
Life is so fragile.

This is just so scary.

Only God knows where they are right now, what they're doing and how they're feeling if they are still alive.


Lost in the dark for five days and counting.

somehow:
@exporer

Any update?

Nothing yet, still missing.

Rescue of Thai soccer team trapped in cave complicated by heavy rains.

ping water out of the cave during the rescue operation at the Tham Luang cave in in Chiang Rai province, Thailand, on June 27, 2018.

Muddy water rising to the ceiling of one of the chambers has prevented Thai navy SEAL divers from progressing farther into the cave to where they think the 12 schoolboys and their coach, who went missing Saturday, may be sheltering.

There has been no contact with the group since they entered the Tham Luang Nang Non cave in Chiang Rai province.



Journalists use their phone as they report in Tham Luang cave complex June 27, 2018.

U.S. and U.K. joined the search.



A U.S. military team and British cave experts joined the rescue effort in northern Thailand for 12 boys and their soccer coach missing for five days inside a cave being flooded by near-constant rains.

A Thai army general coordinating the rescue said Thursday morning that overnight rain had raised water levels again and authorities switched off power and water pumps for fear of electrical hazards.

magabounce:
4 whole days!!! Survival chances are quite sublime

Scary bro, maybe they are lost in there, couldn't find their way baxk.

A cave network with many channels that each can go kilometers.

Flash light batteries down, got separated, no food&water.

Lalasticlala, Mynd44

sisisioge:
Oh my! How far? Have they been found? It is well!

Not yet.

How come?

Tham Luang Nang Non is a cave complex in the Doi Nang Non range.

It is a very long cave system with branches that go on for several kilometres.



Divers said they spotted footprints in one of the Tham Luang Nang Non cave's chambers.

The boys and their coach entered the cave after training on Saturday.

They may have been cut off by rising flood water in the cave, officials said.

Navy SEAL divers equipped with oxygen tanks and food rations entered the cave early on Tuesday, where light rains continued to fall.

'Our team in the area went inside the cave early morning and will continue to walk to the cave's end,' Thai Navy SEAL said on its Facebook page.



Buddhist monks praying outside the Tham Luang caves for their safe return.

Rescue workers are seen inside and outside of the Tham Luang caves.




A navy commander overseeing the search said he was hopeful the 12 twelve boys and their 20-year-old coach would be rescued.

“I believe they’re all still alive but they might be exhausted ... we should get good news today,” Rear Admiral Arparkorn Yookongkaew told Reuters.

People wanting to explore the cave are meant to get permission.

Thailand is in the middle of its rainy season when caves can get flooded or submerged.

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/06/27/asia/thai-football-team-trapped-cave-intl/index.html