Ambassador to Thailand visits flooded cave site to offer Israeli assistance
Envoy Meir Shlomo says Netanyahu has asked him ‘to see how Israel can help its friend Thailand’; leader of rescue effort says conditions ‘perfect’ for evacuation of trapped boys
Israel’s Ambassador to Thailand Meir Shlomo on Saturday visited the site of rescue efforts at the Tham Luang cave complex, where 12 Thai boys and their football coach have been trapped since June 23.
Shlomo said he had come at the request of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “to see how Israel can help its friend Thailand.”
Israeli rescuers have been part of the international effort to extract the children from the flooded cave, and Israeli technology has helped maintain communication with the stranded group.
The rescue mission’s chief said Saturday conditions are “perfect” to evacuate the young football team in the coming days before fresh rains and a possible rise in carbon dioxide further imperil the group.
Rescuers have conceded that evacuating the boys from the chamber in which they are holed up is a race against time, with monsoon rains expected to undo days of round-the-clock drainage of the deluged cave.
“Now and in the next three or four days, the conditions are perfect [for evacuation] in terms of the water, the weather and the boys’ health,” Narongsak Osottanakorn the chief of the rescue operation told reporters.
“We have to make a clear decision on what we can do.”
While the oxygen level had stabilized, he warned levels of “carbon dioxide are another factor” in considering when to move the group — in addition to impending rains, which could cause water to cover much of the muddy ledge on which the group are sheltering.
“The water level may rise to the area where the children are sitting and make the area less than 10 square meters,” he said, citing estimates from cave divers and experts.
In the early hours of Saturday morning he said the boys were not yet ready to dive out of the cave, a complex and dangerous task through twisting and jagged submerged passageways.
But his comments 12 hours later suggested the thinking has changed, with water levels inside the cave currently managed to their lowest point by constant drainage.
The children urged relatives “not to worry” and asked for their favorite food once they are safely evacuated.
In one Pheerapat, nicknamed “Night,” whose 16th birthday the group were celebrating in the cave when they became stuck on June 23, said: “I love you, Dad, Mum and my sister. You don’t need to be worried about me.”
Meanwhile the 25-year-old coach Ekkapol Chantawong, the only adult to accompany the boys into the cave, sent his “apologies” to their parents.
“To all the parents, all the kids are still fine. I promise to take the very best care of the kids,” he said in a note given to divers on Friday.
“Thank you for all the moral support and I apologize to the parents.”
The boys are being trained in the basics of diving in case the floodwaters force authorities into a sudden evacuation.
The risks were underlined by the death on Friday of a former Thai Navy SEAL diver, who ran out of oxygen while returning from the chamber where the boys are trapped.
Saman Kunan had been trying to establish an air line when he lost consciousness and died.
“We lost one man, but we still have faith to carry out our work,” Navy Seal commander Apakorn Yookongkaew said, adding that rescuers have “a limited time” to extract the boys.
Ekkapol’s message is the first from the coach, whose role in the team’s predicament has split Thai social media.
Many have lauded him after reports he gave his share of food to the kids before they were located and helped them get through nine days in the darkness.
Others have criticized him for agreeing to take the young boys into the cave during the monsoon season.
The group entered the cave on June 23 and got trapped as floodwaters gushed in.
Source: The Times of Israel