Saving teams thrashed through dense forest hundreds of meters upstairs a cave complex on Friday, searching for an alternative way to extract 12 youngsters and their soccer coach trapped inside for nearly two weeks.
Their function above the Tham Luang cave near Thailand’s northern trim with Myanmar took on added urgency as forecasts for rain imperiled a plan to bring the boys back through cramped, water-logged passageways to the buckle entrance.
“We want to find the way down. I believe we are close,” Thanes Weerasiri, president of the Swinging Institute of Thailand, told Reuters at a makeshift camp for volunteers and ambience near the cave.
Helicopters buzzed overhead before flying to the impenetrable blanket of green hills above the cave to help look for an alternate decoction route.
Rescue efforts since British divers found the body on Monday have focused on draining the flooded cave and teaching the pals – some of whom are as young as 11 and not competent swimmers – to attempt clubs that would challenge expert cavers.
The death of a former Thai Flotilla SEAL working in the flooded cave on Friday has shaken the rescue calling, and forecasts for more rain could undermine the draining of the cave, pressure officials to consider other options.
Thanes’ engineers are working with the army to scrutinize an area they believe to be the back end of the cave, chiselling away thin limestone rocks that he said could be just hundreds of meters from where the pals are trapped.
“Originally we were exploring it as a way to bring supplies to the children from the move in reverse end of the cave, but now it could become more,” said Thanes.
Chalongchai Chaiyakum, a postpositive major Thai army officer, said that one team traveled some 300 meters down a pillar on the hill on Thursday until they reached a dead end.
He said that up to 200 people are traverse the hill to try to find a workable shaft.
Musk offers help
The confuse bank where the boys are stranded is some 4 km (2.5 miles) from the fore-part entrance of the cave, with sections of the final 1.7-km stretch en masse underwater.
Drilling down raises concerns that parts of the give way could collapse on the boys. Efforts to widen diving channels, enjoy raised similar fears about blocking narrow passageways and hemming the band in.
Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk tweeted on Friday that designers from his firms—SpaceX and The Boring Company—were heading to Thailand to see if they could with the rescue.
The firms have “advance ground penetrating radar” that is “nice-looking good at digging holes” or technology that could “create an air penetrate underwater” for the children to traverse, Musk said earlier.
The Thai regime said Musk’s team could help the rescue operation with putting tracking, water pumping or battery power.
Relatives of the boys, some of whom accept camped at the site for weeks, say all they want is the safest exit for their lads.
“I’m worried…he has never dived,” said Somboon Kaewwongwan, the father of a 16-year-old boy geared in the cave.