Many Challenges Ahead for Thai Rescuers

MAE SAI, Thailand (AP) — A leading American cave rescue expert says many challenges are ahead for rescue divers in Thailand who located the 12 boys and their soccer coach who had been missing in a cave for more than a week.

Anmar Mirza, the U.S. National Cave Rescue Commission coordinator, says the primary decision is now one of whether to try to evacuate them or to supply them in place.

He says "supplying them on site may face challenges depending on how difficult the dives are. Trying to take non-divers through a cave is one of the most dangerous situations possible, even if the dives are relatively easy."

He says that "if the dives are difficult then supply will be difficult, but the risk of trying to dive them out is also exponentially greater."

Rescuers located the boys, aged 11 to 16, and their 25-year-old coach alive deep inside the partially flooded cave in northern Thailand late Monday. They disappeared when flooding trapped them after entering the cave on June 23.