The rescue team has decided to go ahead and start helping the trapped children. So far, 8 of them are out, with 4 remaining, plus the coach.
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Since the 23rd of June, 12 children, members of a football team, as well as their coach, are stuck in a cave in Thailand. The rescue team has decided not to wait anymore and start freeing them one by one. Sunday, the divers helped 4 of the boys to leave the cave, and today they helped 4 more. It seems the rescue team is helping 4 of them a day, meaning the remaining 4 boys and their coach will have to wait until tomorrow to be able to leave, if all goes well.
So far, the rescued football players have been taken to the hospital, to receive treatment, as they were stuck in the cave for over 2 weeks.
Originally, various options were considered. Some of these options were drilling a hole to get to the cave, with numerous teams trying to find the best location to drill, pumping out all the water of the cave, which would have been very difficult to do due to the rain and the amount of water that had to be extracted or leaving the children in the cave until the end of the monsoon period (heavy rain period, typical of Asian countries), which would mean leaving them there for 4 months. Some people offered help, such as Elon Musk, who started working on a small submersible that would potentially fit through the narrow cave corridors but would take days to be ready for use.
The authorities decided to launch the rescue operation yesterday, due to expected heavy rainfalls coming in the next days which could potentially flood the cave, as well as a decreasing oxygen availability in the cave the stranded people are. The authorities considered enough water had been pumped out that it was now the safest time to extract the children, with some parts of the cave walkable. A few days earlier, a former Thai navy seal died due to lack of oxygen while trying to swim back to the entrance of the cave, showing how dangerous the passage was, even for trained divers.
The FIFA organizers have invited the 12 children and their coach to come see the World Cup in Russia if they make it out before the end of the tournaments, which, if all goes well, should happen.
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