Thai boys learning scuba diving to get out of flooded cave

Supplies to help children stuck in a flooded cave in Thailand.
(Image credit: Linh Pham/Getty Images)

Thai rescuers are giving swimming and scuba diving lessons to 12 boys, all members of a soccer team, and their coach in preparation for getting them out of a flooded cave where they have been trapped for 11 days.

Some Navy divers and medics have already reached the boys in a dry area more than two miles inside the cave, bringing them food, blankets, and other supplies. Another 30 divers are being sent in Wednesday to help get them out. Authorities said the boys, between the ages of 11 and 16, might be brought out in phases, as conditions permit, but dismissed as speculation that the children could be trapped for up to four months. "All 13 don't have to come out at the same time," Chiang Rai Governor Narongsak Osottanakorn said. "Who is ready first can go first."

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Harold Maass, The Week US

Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.