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THE UNPRECEDENTED MISSION to evacuate the “Wild Boar” football team from a flooded Thai cave finished on Tuesday after the final four boys and their coach were extracted by elite foreign divers and Thai Navy SEALs.
The final stage of the complex operation, which has gripped Thailand and dominated global headlines, put an end to the 18-day saga that started when the team entered the cave on 23 June.
Here is a timeline of the efforts to find and free the group:
- Saturday, 23 June -
The youngsters, aged between 11 and 16, and their 25-year-old coach enter the Tham Luang cave in northern Thailand during heavy rains after football practice.
They are reported missing after the boys do not come home that night.
Local officials find bicycles locked to a fence and shoes and football boots close to the entrance.
- Sunday, 24 June -
Park officials and police find handprints and footprints believed to belong to the boys. Relatives start to keep vigil outside the cave.
- Monday, 25 June -
Thai Navy SEAL divers enter the cave searching for the boys. Makeshift shrines are set up for parents to pray and make offerings as heavy rains continue.
- Tuesday, 26 June -
Divers are forced out of the cave by rushing floodwaters as they try to reach an air pocket called “Pattaya Beach”, where the boys are believed to have retreated.
- Wednesday, 27 June -
A team of more than 30 American military personnel from the US Pacific Command arrive and are joined by three British diving experts who start to probe the cave.
- Thursday, 28 June -
Downpours create fast-moving floods inside the cave forcing a suspension of the rescue. Water pumps start draining rising, murky floodwaters.
- Friday, 29 June -
Thailand’s junta leader Prayut Chan-O-Cha visits the site and urges relatives not to give up hope.
- Saturday, 30 June -
A break in the rain allows divers to reach further inside the cave but they are still a long distance from where the boys are believed to be.
- Sunday, 1 July -
Divers inch further in, as an operating base is set up inside “Chamber Three” and hundreds of air tanks and other supplies are pulleyed in.
- Monday, 2 July -
Finally, a miracle: the 12 boys and their coach are found alive late Monday evening about 400 metres beyond Pattaya Beach by the British cave diving team.
Crowds at the teeming rescue site cheer the good news, but attention soon turns to the difficult task of getting the boys out safely.
- Tuesday, 3 July -
Much-needed food and medical supplies – including high-calorie gels and paracetamol -reach the boys as rescuers prepare for the possibility that they may remain in the cave for some time.
- Wednesday, 4 July -
Officials say the group are being taught how to use diving masks and breathing apparatuses. Teams pump out water around the clock to help clear the path for divers.
- Thursday, 5 July -
Authorities say expected rains may force a complex rescue sooner than first thought.
- Friday, 6 July -
Tragedy strikes: a diver helping to establish an air line to the boys dies after passing out while returning from the chamber, raising serious doubts over the safety of attempting a rescue.
Thailand’s Navy SEAL commander says oxygen levels inside have dropped. He warns the window of opportunity to free the youngsters is “limited”.
- Saturday, 7 July -
Rescue operations chief Narongsak Osottanakorn says the boys are not ready to dive to safety.
A scrawled message emerges from the team’s coach, offering his “apologies” to their parents, while in other touching notes the boys tell their relatives not to worry.
- Sunday, 8 July -
Divers lead the first four boys out of the cave as night falls.
Narongsak says late in the evening that the rescue mission will not start again for at least another 10 hours to allow oxygen and other supplies to be replenished.
- Monday, 9 July -
As dusk falls four more boys are rescued. The Thai Navy SEALs greet another seemingly successful day with a social media post saying “Hooyah”.
- Tuesday, 10 July -
The last four boys and the coach are safely brought out of the Tham Luang cave in one of the fastest days of the 72-hour operation.
Later in the evening, the last four divers who had helped with the rescue also emerge safely from the cave.
Health officials say the eight boys rescued on the first two days of the mission were in good physical and mental health but more tests are being carried out.
- Wednesday, 11 July -
Despite the positive health assessments so far experts said they would all need to be monitored closely for signs of psychological distress that could take months to manifest itself.
The boys are expected to spend a week in a hospital in Chiang Rai and six months of psychological monitoring.
- Thursday 12 July -
Members of the Thai navy SEAL team, who were among the first searchers to penetrate the watery depth of Tham Luang Nang Non cave and the last divers out, flew to their base at Sattahip on the Gulf of Thailand, where they received a heroes’ welcome.
The ceremony was capped with their commander leading a rousing round of the navy cheer ‘Hooyah!’ that became a trademark of their never-say-die effort to extricate the boys.
Foreign helpers, including some of the world’s best cave divers, also began travelling home.
© – AFP 2018
With reporting from Associated Press
A lot of ifs used on this article, so I’ll add 2 more, if the largest nations don’t start doing their part and they rely on Ireland to save our planet then we’re certainly in trouble.
@Fintan Stack: and one more, if you think more taxes will save the glaciers then there’s something seriously wrong!
@Fintan Stack: they’re relying on the average Joe and Josephine to pick up the tab, unfortunately their real money needs to be spent. All that robber baron money needs to take a pill and recognise why we’re in pollution to begin with….. Utilisation of the industrial use of plastics corporate responsibility has to play a larger part, yrs civilians and govt too but corporatations doing very little.
What about the times when there was no Glaciers, and also no ice at the poles, ie when the Earth was hotter twice before with no fossils being burnt by man, there wasnt always ice at the poles,and Glaciers wernt always here
@Gavin Power: Those changes happened over millennia, similar changes happen in less than 100 years. We and the ecosystem we’re part of simply cannot adapt at this rate.
@Urban Living Dublin: *similar changes happen in less than 100 years at the moment.
@Gavin Power: there wasn’t, but it was caused by the same thing, a build up of CO2. Although it was much much slower. The problem isn’t thats it happening, but the rate its happening at.
@Gavin Power: Humans have never existed in any era of geological time that there hasn’t been ice at the poles. Only with ice did we evolve fully into species that now resemble monkeys and eventually humans.
@Gavin Power: Wet bulb temperatures. Effects of.
Sure 99% of the people reading the journal today will be dead by then, so don’t worry about it…
@Andy O’B: You do have a point, not a great one, but a point. Imagine if our ancestors just gave up and let humanity die off? Humans are a long way from being perfect but we may be the only sentient beings in this universe. That’s something worth protecting at least.
@Maximus_Demonus: yes but not letting the population die off is pleasurable for most – so I doubt it was a tough task ..
@Andy O’B: Your kids won’t be, so all the best to them. Would be nice to pass down a little more than environmental destruction no?
@Maximus_Demonus: I agree, I think he does have a point, a sort of indirect one, the apathy of people the more and more they hear the same thing but don’t have the power to change. What is the ffing point of our small time recycle bins when you’ve massive govt and corporate pollution ongoing, people are sick of being the scapegoat. Yes we’d love to be the environmentally friendly icon but unfortunately you just have to look at what your bread and vegan tofu are wrapped in to know we’re not winning and individual consumers are not going to win the battle, corporation globe, pick up the tab please, the average Joe and Josephine needs help
@Urban Living Dublin: Ah shur they’ll be able to google what the earth used to be like on their smart devices as they sit in a coffee shop chain sipping on coffee imported from around the world as they look cool in their throw away fashion.
Whatever people’s beliefs are about climate change rest assured that there is no stopping it and all climate taxes do is create more poverty.
I’ll be gone and so will my daughter and girlfriend so won’t affect us in any way….by then half the world will be gone to due to governments and war.
@Brian Corr: How will governments and war get rid of half the world in the next 100 years? The same 2 factors have seen the population rise from 1.5 billion to 8 billion over the last 100 years.
@Dan Broderick: “could”.
But won’t.
@Dan Broderick: moron
@Dan Broderick: Ha, ha.
@Dan Broderick: How’s that new tinfoil hat you got for Christmas? Does it fit OK?
With 80% of the glaciers melted by 2100,
there will be a 6 inch rise in sea level.
That’s not much of a rise..
Looks like nothing to worry about..
@Roger Bond: Melting glaciers are only part of the reason for sea level rise. There’s also melting Arctic ice caps, as well as the thermal expansion of the oceans.
If we don’t do anything to reduce emissions, 106 climate experts polled on the subject, think sea level will rise between 2 and 4 feet by 2100.
If we reduce emissions, and keep warming under 1.5 Celsius, the optimistic scenario, the 106 experts polled think sea level rise will be kept between 1 and 2 feet by 2100.
So 12 inches of sea level rise is a highly optimistic prediction.
Horton, B.P., Khan, N.S., Cahill, N., Lee, J.S., Shaw, T.A., Garner, A.J., Kemp, A.C., Engelhart, S.E. and Rahmstorf, S., 2020. Estimating global mean sea-level rise and its uncertainties by 2100 and 2300 from an expert survey. NPJ climate and atmospheric science, 3(1), pp.1-8.:
Corporates pull your weight, stop guilt tripping the public.
So our Grand children will be about 50 if you are 38 now with a 8 year old.
Scarey legacy to leave.
@Data Backup: you ok and not crazy?
@Data Backup: no our grandchildren will be told the same bs but it will be 2200
This climate change is inevitable, we only can do is slow it down and buying more time for mankind. the most important is how we adapt and evolve, in the future human May live and breathe under the water or move to other planets… tech is the key. Don’t be afraid of the tech, it depends how to use it, eg nuclear bomb and nuclear power plant
@Ní neart go cur le chéile.: why inevitable?
@Ní neart go cur le chéile.: What planet would we move to exactly?
@Shaner Mac: Uranus.
Should have postponed the building of the titanic
I’d feel for the rats in 2100 so because there won’t be too many humans left my then
have your say