Trapped Thai team gets dive lessons as rescuers prepare for extraction

Boys from the under-16 soccer team trapped inside Tham Luang cave covered in hypothermia blankets react to the camera in Chiang Rai, Thailand, in this still image taken from a 3 July video by Thai Navy Seal – Reuters

CHIANG RAI, Thailand (Reuters): Rescue teams in northern Thailand were giving crash courses in swimming and diving on Wednesday as part of complex preparations to extract a young soccer squad trapped in a cave, and hoping for a swift end to their harrowing 11-day ordeal.

Divers, medics, counsellors and Thai navy SEALS were with the 12 schoolboys and their 25-year-old coach, providing medicines and food while experts assessed conditions for getting them out safely, a task the government said would not be easy.

“The water is very strong and space is narrow. Extracting the children takes a lot of people,” Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan told reporters. “Now we are teaching the children to swim and dive,” he said, adding that if water levels fell and the flow weakened, they would be taken out quickly.

By late on Tuesday, about 120 million litres of water had been pumped out, or about 1.6 million every hour. It was unclear what the options were to get the “Wild Boar” team out of the Tham Luang caves in Chiang Rai province and how they would be steered through tight, fluid conditions and uncertain weather.