Thai police drop packages for young football team missing for six days
The authorities don't know where the boys are and hope a note attached to the packages will help them find rescuers.
Tuesday 3 July 2018 18:13, UK
Packages have been dropped through a shaft in a mountainside in the hope of reaching 12 boys and their football coach trapped in a cave in Thailand.
The boys, aged between 11 and 16, and their 25-year-old assistant coach went missing on Saturday when they explored the six-mile Tham Luang cave complex in Chiang Rai province.
Bicycles and football boots belonging to the boys were found near the entrance of the cave.
International rescue teams, including the United States Pacific Command (PACOM), are assisting the Thai army, navy and police in the search operation which has been hampered by heavy rain.
Police have been searching ground above to find other ways into the cave as divers try to find their way through the flooded passages.
Twenty packages filled with water, food, medicine, torches and a note addressed to the missing team were dropped down a fissure in the cave on Friday.
But police are not sure exactly where the boys are.
Colonel Kraiboon Sotsong said: "If the children find this box we want them to float the box out of the cave."
"The note says: 'If received, then reply and show on the map where you are. Everybody will quickly help."
Authorities are draining the caves of water and hope it will not rain anymore.
One rescuer said the scene was like "swimming in cold coffee".
Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha visited the site on Friday to provide encouragement to the rescuers and assure relatives keeping vigil that every effort would be made to find the boys.
He said: "Whatever can be done, do it, the government will back it.
"I've come to give everyone encouragement... They are my children, too."
Bill Whitehouse, vice president of the British cave rescue council, said there was a "possibility" the boys will be found alive.
"We must be optimistic," he urged. "Certainly the conditions are very difficult and the circumstances are not promising.
"The heavy rain is keeping the cave flooded, in fact the waters have come up during the week even further, which is creating complications."
He added: "Diving complications with pretty well zero visibility under water, constrictions, complete darkness, of course, and quite a strong water flow as well.
"So diving is not easy. It may even be impossible to dive at the moment with the water being as high as it is.
"They are looking for other possible ways into the cave - there is only one known entrance to this cave but in the terrain around there could be another entrance that could get back into the cave."
At least three rescue workers were taken to hospital on Friday after being electrocuted by power lines fed into the caves to power equipment. It is not known how serious their injuries are.