MAE SAI, Thailand (AP) An aide to the Thai Navy SEAL commander says four boys were brought out of the flooded cave in northern Thailand today and the ongoing rescue operation is over for the day.
The aide, Sitthichai Klangpattana, didnt comment on the boys health or say how well the operation has gone.
A total of eight of the 12 boys have now been brought out of the treacherous cave system by divers, including four who were brought out on Sunday, when the rescue operation began.
The boys and their 25-year-old coach have been trapped for more than two weeks after heavy rains flooded the kilometers-long cave network made up of caverns connected by tight passages.
THAI AUTHORITIES
are being tight-lipped about who was inside an ambulance seen leaving the site of a flooded cave today, as they were the night before when four of the 13 people trapped inside the underground complex were rescued.
Multiple calls to senior government officials and military personnel leading the operation to rescue the members of the youth soccer team rang unanswered today.
On Sunday, officials waited until several hours after the rescued boys had been transported to hospitals to announce their rescue.
Thai public television has aired live video of a medivac helicopter landing close to a hospital in the city of Chiang Rai, near the site of the cave where a youth soccer team has been trapped for more than two weeks.
Medics appeared to remove one person on a stretcher but hid the persons identity behind multiple white umbrellas. An ambulance was seen leaving the scene immediately afterward.
Less than an hour earlier, an ambulance with flashing lights had left the cave complex, hours after the start of the second phase of an operation to rescue the soccer team.
Chiang Rai acting Gov. Narongsak Osatanakorn, who is heading the rescue, had said the second phase began at 11 a.m. today and authorities hope to hear good news in the next few hours.
