An ambulance carrying one of the rescued boys heads to the hospital. Photo: Linh Pham/Getty Images
Ten boys have now been rescued from a cave in Thailand where a group of 12 boys from a youth soccer team and their coach had been trapped for over two weeks, per CNN.
The details: In the operation, which began on Sunday morning, a team of Thai and foreign divers are taking the boys out one-by-one in an assisted underwater dive, AP reports. Their journey back to the entrance of the cave could take as long as 5.5 hours, though Thai officials have said that the speed of the rescues are better than expected.
Rescuers tell AP that it might take two to four days to bring everyone out of the cave safely, depending on the severity of the conditions inside. A former Thai Navy SEAL who voluntarily joined the rescue effort died yesterday after he ran out of oxygen in the flooded cave, per ABC.
The decision to begin the rescue effort Sunday was due to low floodwater levels, AP reports. Four boys were removed from the cave on Sunday until the rescue was paused to replenish oxygen supplies on the ledge where the team is trapped.
In a Facebook post, the rescue divers wrote: “We, the Thai team and the international team, will bring the Wild Boars home.” The youth soccer team is called the Wild Boars.
