2 more ambulances leave site of Thai cave

Two ambulances arrive near the cave to wait for more evacuations of the boys and their soccer coach who have been trapped since June 23, in Mae Sai, Chiang Rai province, northern Thailand on July 9, 2018. AP

MAE SAI, Thailand  —Two more ambulances have been seen leaving the site of a flooded cave in northern Thailand where young members of a soccer team and their 25-year-old coach have been trapped for more than two weeks.

That brings to three the number of ambulances that have left the site Monday during the second day of a high-risk operation to bring the boys out of a labyrinth cave system made up of tight passageways and flooded chambers.

On Sunday, teams of divers brought out four of the trapped boys but waited several hours before confirming their safe rescue.
Authorities have been tightlipped about the progress of Monday’s operation.

Thai authorities are being tight-lipped about who was inside an ambulance seen leaving the site of a flooded cave Monday, 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 Monday evening.

On Sunday, officials waited until several hours after the rescued boys had been transported to hospitals to announce their rescue.
As of Monday morning, eight boys and their coach remained in the cave where they have been trapped by floods since June 23.

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 person’s identity behind multiple white umbrellas. An ambulance was seen leaving the scene immediately afterward early Monday evening.

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.

As of Monday morning, nine people remained trapped in the cave, including the 12-member team’s coach, after four boys were rescued on Sunday, the first day of the rescue operation. /ee