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Divers with Extra Supplies Advance in Thai Cave Passageway

by Associated Press

   MAE SAI, THAILAND --

   Rescue divers on Monday were making progress through a key passageway
   inside the flooded mountain cave in northern Thailand where 12 boys and
   their soccer coach have been missing for more than a week.

   Thai navy SEALs said in a Facebook post early Monday that divers since
   Sunday night had reached a bend where the kilometer- (half-mile-) long
   passage splits in two directions. The divers are aiming for a sandy
   chamber on higher ground in the cave, where they believe the group
   would be safe.

   The boys, aged 11 to 16, and their 25-year-old coach entered Tham Luang
   Nang Non cave in Chiang Rai province on June 23. Heavy rains that
   flooded key passages are believed to have trapped the soccer players
   and have thwarted the search for them.

   Divers have been stymied again and again by muddy water rising filing
   sections of the cave and forcing them to withdraw for safety reasons.
   When water levels dropped Sunday, the divers went forward with a more
   methodical approach, deploying a rope line and extra oxygen supplies
   along the way.

   "I hope that today we will continue to have another good day. It will
   be even better if everything else could run smoothly,'' Chiang Rai Gov.
   Narongsak Osatanakorn told reporters Monday.

   He said the passageway the divers are making their way through goes
   upward in some places and downward in others and is extremely narrow.
   It is difficult for divers with all their gear to fit through.

   In addition to the divers, teams have been working to pump out water as
   well as divert groundwater. Other efforts have focused on finding
   shafts on the mountainside that might serve as a back door to the
   blocked-off areas where the missing may be sheltering.

   Teams have been combing the mountainside looking for fissure that might
   lead to such shafts. Several have been found and explorers have been
   able to descend into some, but so far it is not clear whether they lead
   to anywhere useful.

   Narongsak said they were focusing Sunday on two of the shafts.

   Experts in cave rescues from around the world continued to gather at
   the site. An official Australian group has now followed a U.S. military
   team, British cave experts, Chinese lifesaving responders and several
   other volunteer groups from various countries.