A year later, Thailand's rescued 'cave boys' honour diver who died

By Prapan Chankaew

 

Coach Ekapol Chantawong of the Wild Boars soccer team, speaks with his team, during their return to Tham Luang, as they mark the one-year anniversary of being trapped in the cave, in Chiang Rai, Thailand, June 24, 2019. REUTERS/Soe Zeya Tun

 

CHIANG RAI, Thailand (Reuters) - A Thai football team trapped in a cave last year for 17 days returned there on Monday to perform Buddhist rituals honouring a former navy diver killed in the dramatic effort to rescue them that captivated the world.

 

A year after their ordeal, the team of 12, wearing yellow T-shirts, accompanied by their coach, gave alms to monks in honour of Sergeant Saman Kunan, who died while he worked underwater.

 

"I want to thank Sergeant Sam," Ekkapol Chantawong, assistant coach of the Wild Boars football team, told Reuters Video News, as the group placed flowers before a portrait of the diver, set beside a row of shaven-headed monks in orange robes.

 

"Without him, I and the boys would not be standing here."

 

The team, aged between 11 and 16, were trapped with their coach on June 23, 2018 when a rainy season downpour flooded the tunnels of a cave complex they were exploring in the northern province of Chiang Rai.

 

The race to rescue them gripped public attention as experts from around the world volunteered to help.

 

Saman Kunan, a former member of an elite Thai Navy SEAL unit, died on the night of July 5 after entering the cave to place oxygen tanks along a potential exit route.

 

Saman's wife, Waleeporn Kunan, said the boys always expressed their gratitude to her when they crossed paths in the district where they all live.

 

"Every time they see me, they would run over just like back then right after their rescue," she said.

 

The boys received football shirts and offers of tours and match tickets as their rescue unfolded during the World Cup.

 

 

A year later, fascination with the saga has yet to die down.

 

Netflix said in April it had signed a deal to make a miniseries about the rescue, to be directed by "Crazy Rich Asians" director Jon M. Chu and Nattawut "Baz" Poonpiriya.

 

Two books about the rescue have been published, and a feature film by British-Thai director Tom Waller, "The Cave", wrapped shooting in December, the Hollywood Reporter has said.

 

The boys, regarded as national treasures in Thailand, declined to be interviewed and referred questions to their football coach.

 

"Life is the same but now more people know about me," said Ekkapol, who founded a new football team, Ekkapol Academy, for underprivileged and stateless children.

 

Ekkapol, who is from a minority group in Myanmar, was granted Thai citizenship after the rescue, as were several of the rescued boys who were also stateless.

 

"The football team is to encourage the boys, especially the border boys, to have somewhere they can play football. To have their own field and a brighter future," he said.

 

(Reporting by Prapan Chankaew, Panu Wongcha-um and Panarat Thepgumpanat; editing by Darren Schuettler and Clarence Fernandez)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2019-06-24

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Timeline: Thai cave rescue that transfixed the world for 17 days

By Panu Wongcha-um and Panarat Thepgumpanat

 

 

BANGKOK (Reuters) - On June 23, 2018, a group of 12 boys and their soccer coach went to explore the Tham Luang cave complex in Thailand's Chiang Rai province, not knowing that rising flood water after heavy rain would soon trap them.

 

It was not until that evening that national park officials determined that the boys, aged 11 to 16, members of a soccer club called the Wild Boars, were missing in the cave and initiated a search that turned into an international effort conducted in the glare of the global media.

 

Following is a timeline of how the rescue unfolded.

 

- June 24: British caver Vernon Unsworth, who had explored the Tham Luang cave before, accompanied park rangers into the cave on the first day of the search to find that fast flowing flood waters has block access.

 

- June 25: The Thai navy sent a team of its elite SEAL unit while pumps were brought in to drain the cave. Rescuers began to search for alternative openings into the cave from the forest-clad hills above.

 

- June 27: British cave-divers Richard Stanton and John Volanthen, and British caver Robert Harper, arrived to help.

 

- June 28: Rescue experts from the U.S. military, China, and Laos as well as British, Belgian and Australian cave divers arrive to help.

 

- June 29: British divers reach a third chamber inside the cave complex, an area which became the forward base for the search operation.

Phra Khuva Boonchum, a prominent Buddhist monk from neighbouring Myanmar come to the cave to conduct religious ceremonies. He said he believed the 12 boys and their coach were still alive.

 

- July 2: British divers John Volanthen and Richard Stanton surfaced in a flooded chamber to find the boys alive, huddled together in the light of the divers' torches, on a muddy slope.

 

"How many are you?" Volanthen asked in an encounter captured on video and soon beamed around the world.

"Thirteen? Brilliant!"

 

They had spent nine nights inside the cave complex, living on very little food and water.

 

Thousands of volunteers joined what then became an operation to bring them out through flooded tunnels.

 

- July 3: A Thai army doctor and divers were sent in to the boys with supplies. Outside, the rescuers were devising a plan involving placing oxygen canisters and guiding lines along the route, through muddy waters and surging currents, at times through narrow small passageways.

 

- July 6: Retired Thai diver Lieutenant-Commander Saman Gunan, 38, died inside a tunnel during preparations for the rescue.

 

- July 8: The extraction started and the first four boys were brought out and sent to hospital by helicopter in Chiang Rai town.

 

- July 9: Four more boys were rescued.

 

- July 10: The last five as well as the Thai army doctor and navy divers who went to stay with the trapped boys were brought out safely.

 

The Wild Boars were celebrities and have toured the world since then. Films are being made about their ordeal.

The cave has been off-limit to the public.

 

A bronze statue of Saman Gunan, the diver who died, has been erected near the cave entrance.

 

(Writing by Kay Johnson; Editing by Robert Birsel)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2019-06-25

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Saman Gunan - RIP.