Thai cave rescuers face race against time as oxygen levels drop

Chiang Rai:- Pressure is mounting on Thai authorities to bring forward a rescue plan for 12 boys and their coach trapped deep inside a flooded cave in northern Thailand, after the death of a former navy diver and a drop in oxygen levels underground.

Officials initially thought they could keep the boys and their coach in the cave where they are trapped for up to four months, until waters dropped sufficiently for them to be able to walk out.

But the death of a rescue team member, and the realization that oxygen levels have fallen to potentially dangerous levels, appears to have forced a reassessment of the situation.

Thai Navy SEAL chief Rear Adm. Aphakorn Yoo-kongkaew said oxygen levels in the cave had dropped to 15%, a level that one Thai medic said posed a serious risk of hypoxia, the same condition that causes altitude sickness. It was too dangerous to leave the boys much longer, Yoo-kongkaew said, despite the risks involved in attempting to bring them out.

"We can no longer wait for all conditions (to be ready) because of the oppressive situation," he told journalists Friday.

"We originally thought the young boys could stay safe inside the cave for quite a long time but circumstances have changed. We have limited amount of time." He did not say how long they could survive with current oxygen levels, but he said getting more oxygen piped into the boys was top priority.

Scuba oxygen tanks being delivered to the cave rescue site on July 01, 2018.

The SEAL commander spoke just hours after former Sgt. Saman Kunan, a Thai ex-SEAL, died at 2 a.m. Friday (2 p.m. Thursday ET), as he returned from an operation to deliver oxygen tanks to the cave where the boys are located.

The 38-year-old ran out of air while underwater, an official said.

The boys, members of a youth football team, and their coach have been trapped in the labyrinthine cave for nearly two weeks, unable to navigate their way out of a series of narrow passages after floodwaters forced them to take shelter.

'He was a triathlete'

Former Thai Navy SEAL Saman Kunan, who died in the Tham Luang Nang Non cave complex during a massive rescue operation to save 12 boys and their soccer coach.

Kunan's death had changed the mood on the ground and made real for rescuers just how dangerous the mission has become.

"Definitely you can feel it that it has an effect, but we're moving on. Everyone is a professional so we're trying to put it away and avoid it happening again," said Finnish volunteer diver Mikko Paasi, a long-term resident of Thailand.

"Everybody is focusing on getting these boys out -- keeping them alive or getting them out."

The UK divers who first reached the boys described their dive as "gnarly" and full of tight passages submerged with opaque waters. Authorities have been considering teaching the boys to breathe through scuba oxygen tanks to be pulled out.