Rescue workers have delivered the second group of four school children, who have been trapped in the Khao Luang cave for more than two weeks, to the hospital. The operation took place without incident, the next stage of the children’s evacuation depends on weather conditions, head of the rescue mission, former governor of the Chiang Rai province Narrongsak Osottanakorn said. He added that today’s operation, which involved more than 100 divers, including 18 foreign citizens, took two hours less than yesterday’s one.
“We will need 20 more hours to prepare for day three of the evacuation,” Osottanakorn informed. “I cannot tell you the exact time of when the next operation begins,” he concluded.
According to the Bangkok Post newspaper, Thailand’s PM Prayut Chan-o-cha visited 8 rescued children in the hospital before returning to the capital.
On June 23, national park staff found a motorbike, bicycles and sports equipment near a cave entrance and contacted a local football club, which confirmed that those things belonged to 12 kids aged between 11 and 16 years and their 25-year-old coach. The cave where the group went missing stretches for almost ten kilometers, it has several entrances and exits, as well as large chambers, where the group members found shelter from the rising waters caused by a rainy season downpour. On July 8-9, divers rescued two groups of four kids, who were then hospitalized.
